Blended Finance Sector Deep Dive: Gender (Consultation Paper)

This Blended Finance Sector Study (“Consultation Paper”) was commissioned by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) to conduct a deep dive into a gender approach to blended finance. The objective of this sector study is to provide a better understanding of the potential and impact of blended finance to attract private sector capital to projects and companies with ‘gender lenses’ (i.e., that consider the different needs and circumstances of people of all genders within the target beneficiary group). Gender equality and women’s empowerment are both a goal and a means of achieving sustainable development. Blended finance is recognized as one important approach for mobilizing additional sources of capital to achieve the SDGs. The initial findings of this research were discussed at a Knowledge Exchange Workshop on Blended Finance in Stockholm (May 2018) and distributed for consultation between September 2018 and February 2019.