Action and Accountability: An Interview with Robyn Oates, UN Women
Robyn Oates is a Sustainable Finance Specialist at UN Women. She is passionate about developing impact-centric standards, products and partnerships to support the sustainable financing ecosystem, including gender lens investing. She shares how UN Women is working with capital market actors to strengthen the credibility of gender lens investing, as well as her thoughts on how we can encourage different players in the space to work more effectively together.
What have you seen changing in gender lens investing in the last couple of years?
We've seen an increased interest and emphasis in measuring gender, diversity and inclusion indicators in business practise, investment and financing decisions and a growing recognition that these indicators and considerations must extend beyond the most commonly referenced metric of “number of women in the leadership / the boardroom”[1].
Consistent with the growing concerns around how ESG data is being used and equated with sustainability, there is an increasing depth in the research and evidence base behind commonly quoted gender metrics. For example, research done by Professor Andreas Hoepner and co-authors from ExecuShe shows that while women account for about a quarter of the top executives at S&P 500 companies they only control about 1% of the value of shares held among their fellow corporate leaders. This deepening of evidence and research is, in itself, useful for informing policy decisions and is reflective of a maturing market that seeks to “lift the hood” and assess the multiple layers and dimensions of the change over time. This development is taking place within the context of growing demand for increasing transparency, accountability and independent verification of outcomes and impact.
How has your strategy evolved?
UN Women has a long history of influencing the public finance decisions of governments through its advocacy and policy expertise and has been particularly effective in supporting governments and ministries of finance through its work on gender responsive budgeting. Over the past few years, UN Women has built on this institutional expertise and is working with capital market actors to strengthen the credibility of gender lens investing by applying economic justice principles which also account for the relevant power dynamics, building key partnerships and strengthening market infrastructure through standard setting.
The rationale for this is clear. Without leveraging both public and private financing, we will not have the resources required to close the pervasive gender gaps across all areas of economic, social and political life.
What is needed to unlock more gender lens investing capital?
First and foremost, we need to continue driving the “why” behind GLI.
We may be at risk of operating under the assumption that everyone knows what we mean when we use terms like “gender lens investing” and we may assume that everyone knows that it is both the right thing and smart thing to do. At a time when social and environment priorities may be seen as competing for the same airtime and resources, it’s important for us to continue to show that gender equality and women’s empowerment is a human right and a necessary pre-cursor to achieving lasting sustainability. Research continues to show that improving gender equality has both an enabling and multiplier effect. For investment, financial flow or business practise to be labelled “sustainable” they must incorporate gender considerations in a meaningful way.
Second, we need to continue demonstrating the “how”. Providing platforms for entities to share demonstrative case studies of how gender lens investing has been done, and the resulting outcomes is important for knowledge sharing and socialisation. UN Women has engaged with a range of public and private sector actors and there is strong desire and willingness to apply a gender lens to their business practises, financing, and investment decisions and to track the impact of such actions, but many times these organisations are unclear on where to start and what to prioritise and how to assess outcomes and impact. There are a range of tools out there that can help – the WEPS Gap Analysis Tool can be a very useful place to start.
Third, the development of globally accepted standards and independent verification is key in the development of a credible market.
In order to avoid unnecessary fragmentation of the market, having a co-ordinated and structured approach to standard setting is key. UN Women, as the global entity and mandate to support gender equality across the globe is working with a number of partners to convene working groups and drive the development of these standards which will also be used to inform regulatory and disclosure requirements.
In late 2021, UN Women, IFC and the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) worked together to launch the first global guide on gender bonds.
The guide “Bonds to Bridge the Gender Gap: A Practitioner’s Guide to Using Sustainable Debt for Gender Equality” sits under the internationally recognised ICMA Social Bond Principles and is being used and referenced by issuers, investors, borrowers, underwriters, arrangers, and external reviewers as they seek to integrate gender equality objectives into sustainable debt products and lower the risk of “impact- washing”.
How might we get different players working more effectively together, from public to private markets, and policy?
Lasting gender equality demands strong government action for gender-responsive laws and policies, a committed private sector and a vibrant civil society.
“Incorporating disclosure and impact reporting are becoming a core element of doing business in the sustainable financing arena. Regardless of whether reporting becomes a regulatory requirement or a voluntary process, we anticipate that economic justice expectations from society and impact investors will shift market practice over time. ”
Gender lens investing is at its core about linking capital flows to gender equality objectives and demonstrating that this linkage results in better outcomes for women and girls. It is about action and accountability. GLI is not an end in itself, rather it should be considered as one of a range of tools, strategies and interventions, employed to achieve lasting equality.
Standards cannot be set and adopted, and innovations will not achieve their full potential without the engagement of all actors in the ecosystem. Strong public-private engagement was instrumental in the development of the 2006 Principles of Responsible Investing (PRI) and the creation of the UN Global Compact.
In April, UN Women and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange joined forces to make it easier for issuers and investors to identify and tag gender-focused bonds on the Luxembourg Green Exchange. This is a significant development in the GLI market infrastructure. By tagging securities that allocate all or a portion of their financing to concrete projects and strategies that contribute to gender equality objectives the Exchange is making it easier for investors to identify credible gender focused investments. While the LuxSE is the first exchange to do this, we see other exchanges following suite noting that strong accountability mechanisms are needed in order to minimize the risks of impact washing.
What can financial institutions be doing to support this change?
With the increasing focus on sustainability, they have an opportunity to look inward and outward at the ways in which they address gender equality. As a starting point, financial institutions can become stronger organizations with adherence to the Women’s Empowerment Principles. A priority could be to develop dedicated action plans to address possible inequalities within their own organisation and in the financial instruments they offer to clients. For example, more and more financial institutions are making commitments to improve access to finance for women-led businesses and gender-responsive businesses. This is accompanied by innovations in financial inclusion with earmarked credit lines and business support services offered to women clients.
When commitments and pledges are made, organisations should disclose how and by when they plan to deliver against their commitments. The question that should also be asked (and answered) is who will hold organisations to account if they don’t? Incorporating disclosure and impact reporting are becoming a core element of doing business in the sustainable financing arena. Regardless of whether reporting becomes a regulatory requirement or a voluntary process, we anticipate that economic justice expectations from society and impact investors will shift market practice over time.
Staying ahead of the curve will imply focusing on demonstrating how businesses deliver on their commitments and achieve impact, while avoiding increased costs to consumers. Credibility and clarity are key. As financial institutions are setting out their commitments, these commitments must be followed by action and action by accountability.
[1] The UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) provide examples of over 70 best practise indicators to assist companies in integrating gender considerations across their workplace (including parental leave policies, access to care etc), marketplace (including within supply chains, distribution networks, media campaigns etc) and community (including leading by example and working with a broad range of stakeholders to take concrete actions to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment.
