Gender
Hub

In 2021, as part of the Ilu Women’s Empowerment Fund project, Pro Mujer and its partner Deetken Impact received $1.3 million USD from USAID to create the Ilu Women’s Empowerment Program to provide technical assistance and online training to companies in Latin America and the Caribbean on how to add gender strategies. As part of the program, an Ilu Toolbox was created. It is an open-source platform with over 30 resources to help companies address gender gaps and implement strategies to attract gender hub using four lenses.

To adequately respond to the growing inequalities in accessing capital, Pro Mujer and Acrux Partners -with the support of USAID via DAI/Invest- have teamed up to mainstream gender lens into the investment strategies, practices and internal policies of relevant financial sector actors in Latin America through:

• Providing financial sector players with tailor-made technical assistance and training to make diverse, gender-focused, evidence-based decisions in their investment strategies and internal procedures;
• Promoting capacity building with tools and resources across institutions’ operations;
• Developing a comprehensive open-source platform of resources to host all pertinent research, tools, and case studies that make the case for evidence-based gender hub and motivate other actors to incorporate these strategies across the board;
• Contributing to the emerging field of gender hub by providing relevant tools for the financial sector that can be used to tackle gender inequalities.

In partnership with Acrux and UN Women, Pro Mujer developed a proposal for the Design, Structuring, and Piloting of an innovative financing instrument with a gender perspective to finance women entrepreneurs and companies led by women in LAC.

In partnership with Acrux and UN Women, Pro Mujer prepared a proposal for the development and implementation of a gender perspective strategy in Bolivia focusing on the most used gender lenses for impact investments.

This study was part of the UN Women program “Win-Win: Gender Equality Means Good Business” and was led, among others, by María Laura Tinelli, Director of Acrux Partners and Strategic Business Development Manager at Pro Mujer. The specialists explored the status of gender lens investment in Chile and its challenges and barriers.

In partnership with Acrux and UN Women, Pro Mujer prepared a strategy to incorporate the gender perspective in Ecuador’s financial ecosystem of impact investment.

This study was part of the UN Women program “Win-Win: Gender Equality Means Good Business” and was led, among others, by María Laura Tinelli, Director of Acrux Partners and Strategic Business Development Manager at Pro Mujer. The specialists explored the status of gender lens investment in Uruguay and its challenges and barriers.

Pro Mujer worked with Coca-Cola Mexico to provide support and advise on gender perspectives in the value chain. We held workshops regarding the basic principles to incorporate the gender perspective in the value chain for Coca-Cola and its bottlers. A specialized content on gender perspective for microentrepreneurs (shopkeepers) was also developed.

In partnership with the Coca-Cola Foundation and Fundes, we created the Economic Empowerment Program for Women and Small Businesses, and the gender lens was implemented. In its first five months of implementation, the program reached more than 16,000 shopkeepers.

Within the framework of SEDAL’s “Repensemos el Rosado” (in English, “Rethink Pink”) campaign, Pro Mujer assisted in the use of inclusive communication for the different actions of the campaign. We provided four mentoring sessions aimed at spokespersons, staff, and campaign ambassadors. Basic concepts on gender and intersectionality, gender gaps, gender hub, gender-based violence, and inclusive language were discussed.