Significant strides have been made in advancing gender equality worldwide over the past decades, yet critical gaps remain. Investing in women’s rights and opportunities is not only the right thing to do from a moral perspective but also a proven driver of stronger financial performance for businesses. At Norfund, we are dedicated to fostering gender equality both within our organization and among our investees.
Norfund’s work on gender equality is guided by our Gender Position. Norfund reports annually on the gender balance in Norfund and the companies we are invested in to the Board of Directors and in the annual report.
Norfund’s position on gender equality and women’s economic empowerment has three objectives:
- To ensure equal opportunities and promote gender balance across all levels in Norfund
- To promote equal opportunities for men and women across all levels in investee companies and through access to finance
- To engage with relevant stakeholders to learn and where possible influence others to promote gender equality
Gender balance in Norfund’s portfolio companies
We collect gender disaggregated data from all investees annually. This enables us to carry out gender analyses at investee and portfolio level, and helps us to create awareness, both internally and externally, about gender equality.
In 2024, the number of direct jobs held by women increased by 15 100 jobs, or 7.9 %, within Norfund’s portfolio companies (with two consecutive years of reporting)*. The total number of jobs held by women in our portfolio companies was 260 000 by the end of 2024.
* Includes investees directly in Norfund portfolio as well as investees through platforms and funds
Note: The figures are not directly comparable across years due to changes in Norfund’s portfolio. For 2023 and 2024 the numbers relating to employment also include investments under the climate mandate. For 2024, the share of individual loan clients reflect 2023 numbers.
Empowering women through access to finance
Expanding access to finance for women is one of the most effective ways our investments contribute to greater gender equality. The majority of individual loan clients reached through our investments are women. These services are delivered through different types of financial institutions, including large banks, microfinance institutions, many of which primarily serve female customers, and companies in the financial technology sector.
In 2024, Norfund invested in a syndicated loan led by FMO in Génesis, a microfinance institution in Guatemala. Génesis currently serves over 340,000 clients, with 72% being women and 76% residing in rural areas. The company enables these women to enhance their businesses and improve their families’ quality of life through enabling financial access, tailored guidance and training. Most of their clients are from the base of the income pyramid. The company typically examines how well the client and their family are in terms of basic needs before moving them towards loans for their micro businesses, or offers a mix of funding to achieve both improved quality of life and access to funding for their business. They call this their “Development Route” and it is formulated for each client.
The investment in Genesis aligns with our commitment to foster gender equality through economic empowerment and economic development in underserved communities.
Norfund has a strong focus on client protection as part of its investments in financial inclusion. During the due diligence process, Norfund ensures that financial institutions adhere to responsible lending practices that protect clients from harm and promote transparency, fairness, and respect. This involves assessing the company’s client protection measures and verifying the client protection certification or social rating, ensuring the certification is from a credible third-party source, and identifying areas for improvement.
Engagement with our investees
Norfund promotes entrepreneurship and self-employment through enabling access to finance as well as promoting equal opportunities for men and women in our investees. Norfund requests information and data on gender balance already as part of the due diligence process to explore areas for improvement and assess the companies’ intentionality towards gender equality. We also look for gender diversity nominating and appointing board directors for our investees.
Our Business Support facility is an important tool in Norfund’s work to support our investees. This can facilitate external support on gender gap assessments, gender and diversity strategy development or training.
One example of such a business support project approved in 2024 was with Phatisa Food Fund II, to provide insights on challenges and opportunities to improve gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) across the argi value chain, particularly focused in the fruit farming sector in South Africa. This project consists of research and data collection to better understand challenges and opportunities to enhance GESI in the South African agribusiness value chain. As a result, we expect to see realistic and tangible improvement opportunities for companies described and implemented.
In 2024, we also supported EcoEnterprises in advancing gender equality across its portfolio companies through a range of tailored initiatives. These initiatives were designed to address the specific needs of each company and included training programs for female employees, leadership development workshops, climate resilience assessments and resources for smallholder farmers, as well as gender diagnostics to identify areas for improvement and provide targeted recommendations.
Several portfolio companies recognized the importance of strengthening support for women employees by enhancing their leadership skills and offering personalized coaching. One company identified the need to foster a more inclusive organizational culture and, as a result, engaged the workforce in a series of workshops and training sessions. These sessions focused on combating discrimination, promoting inclusivity, and implementing tools to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In addition to these company specific Business Support projects, we also collaborate with The Female Future Program and The Board Room Africa, two programs that offer leadership training primarily to women. Over the past years, several women in Norfund’s portfolio companies have attended these programs.
Addressing gender-based violence and harassment
Encouraging gender equality and diversity across all levels in investees and through their products and services also requires addressing gender-based discrimination, violence and harassment (GBVH), a pervasive and critical global challenge. Norfund is committed to promoting compliance with the ILO Convention on Violence and Harassment C190.
Norfund is enhancing the capacity of its investees to identify, prevent, and manage GBVH in the workplace. Through Business Support funding, we are providing a series of advanced GBVH training sessions for portfolio companies, running from 2024 to 2026. The training is co-funded by BII (UK, lead investor), DFC (US), Proparco (FR) and DEG (GE) and delivered by Social Development Direct. In 2024, training sessions were held in Kenya, India, and Ghana, receiving excellent feedback from the participants from our portfolio. Additionally, several more participants from our portfolio companies attended, with their costs covered by other DFIs.
Internally we have also strengthened capacity, through trainings, and integrated tools to assess and address the risk of GBVH in Norfund’s portfolio throughout 2024.
Engagement with the wider society
To deliver on our gender strategy, we are also committed to enhancing existing and exploring new ways of collaboration addressing gender equality and diversity. As a minority investor, collaboration with partners is essential.
Norfund is a member of the 2X Global and has supported the organization since its inception. The 2X Global is an international membership and field-building organization and a result of an ambition of G7 countries to increase investments in women in developing countries.
During the fall of 2024, Norfund held a dialogue meeting regarding gender equality with Norwegian civil society organizations, to get input and facilitate dialogue around how we work on gender equality and gender-related risks / GBVH. A broad range of civil society organizations were invited to share their experiences. Twelve institutions and sixteen people attended the dialogue meeting.
Furthermore, during 2024, we continued our collaboration with the Nordic DFIs, IFU (DK), Swedfund (SE) and Finnfund (FI), on gender equality by sharing and learning as well as exploring collaboration on work related to gender equality within investees in which we have co-invested.
In addition, we rely on other partners with subject matter expertise to learn and discuss our approach and challenges.