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ABOUT THE G-SEARCh CONSORTIUM
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Who are we?
The Gender-Smart Enterprise Assistance Research Coalition (G-SEARCh) is a coalition of six impact investors committed to building the business case for investing with a gender lens in SMEs in emerging markets. The consortium includes AlphaMundi Foundation, Acumen, SEAF, Root Capital, AHL Venture Partners, and Shell Foundation. Each investor provides and supports gender-smart technical assistance activities across business operations to select SMEs in their portfolio. William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI) and Value for Women are strategic partners to the consortium. For more information on the consortium, please visit here.
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What is Gender-Smart Technical Assistance?
Gender-smart technical assistance (TA) improves gender equity while enhancing companies’ financial performance. We group this type of support into two categories: 1) TA that is internal to the company and can include enhanced recruitment and retention efforts for women employees, refining human resource policies, and developing employee skills; 2) TA that is external to the company and provides practices to improve outcomes for women in the companies’ supply chains, such as conducting market research to better understand women customer needs and adapt product and service offerings to better meet these needs. Learn more about the investor approaches to gender-smart technical assistance here.
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Why are we conducting research?
The consortium’s research partner, WDI, is measuring the effectiveness of different approaches and tools that consortium members deploy as part of the effort to build the business case and evidence base for gender lens investing (GLI). The project focuses on 20+ SMEs across Africa, Asia and Latin America. These businesses work in various sectors, including microfinance and financial inclusion, sustainable food and agriculture, business services, and renewable energy and climate change mitigation. This resource shares social and financial output and outcome indicators suggested to the companies in our sample to measure the changes contributed by a specific TA.
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Tell me more about gender lens investing!
Momentum for gender lens investing is growing, and investors are increasingly aligning their processes and investing theses with gender criteria. This is partly evidenced by the increased capital moving with a gender lens, as tracked by Project Sage 3.0.

Innovations and insights are emerging quickly with new ideas and approaches being tested, iterated, and shared. As the definition and understanding of GLI expand, many practitioners wonder how to go beyond “counting women,” and best apply gender lens investing to achieve double and triple-bottom lines.

While GLI often focuses on providing capital to women-led businesses, there are multiple other opportunities to incorporate inclusive practices across business operations and internally with the workforce. TA helps SMEs, wherever their starting points, to create intentional strategies to improve the lives of women and/or girls and promote gender equality. These actions can target SMEs’ customers, workforce, suppliers, and other vital women stakeholders.
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Disclaimers: The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of IDRC or its Board of Governors. This work was carried out with a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. This work was made possible by the generous support of the American people through USAID. The contents are the responsibility of the G-SEARCh consortium and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government. Additionally, the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of each individual or organizational consortium member, the grant funding partners, or their constituents.
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