Equality Fund

“In May 2018 Canada issued a call to action to create a partnership between the private sector, philanthropists and civil society organizations to establish a first of its kind partnership to mobilized unprecedented levels of resources for women’s organizations and movements in support of advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in ODA countries.

The primary mandate is to create a sustainable source of funding in the form of grants and other type of funding, technical assistance, institutional strengthening, and network building to strengthen women’s organizations and movements that advance women’s rights, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in developing countries and operate at local, national, regional, and global levels.

The Consortium will sustain this core mandate by (1) mobilizing, receiving and managing financial contributions from governments, individuals, philanthropic foundations, the private sector and other donors; and (2) generating additional financial resources through investing, including gender lens impact investing in line with the overall goals of the Initiative. The Returns from these investments shall contribute to the sustainability of the Initiative over time, while gender lens impact investing shall contribute to gender equality outcomes. In addition, all investments will apply a gender lens using an established gender lens standard.”

The primary objective of the Investment Fund2 is to produce an ongoing source of income for the Program. It is expected that the Investment Fund will produce sufficient income to the Program so that, when combined with funding from other sources including $155 million in fundraising, at least $300 million can be provided in direct flows to women’s organizations and women’s funds over 15 years.

The investment portfolio will include impact investing, namely investing that, in addition to generating Returns, seeks to intentionally and measurably address gender disparities. This should be included in the Investment Policy Statement, and reporting on the investments should include reporting in line with gender lens investing industry standards and best practices.

The Investment Fund would: achieve a level of investment income that enables the Initiative to deliver a more ambitious level of direct flows to women’s organizations and women’s funds than described above and; maximize the gender lens investing in terms of depth of gender equality impact and proportion of funds allocated.

In June 2019, the Initiative was awarded a $300M contribution from GOC, aimed at mobilizing significant capital to support gender equality in Canada and internationally. The parties (“the Parties”) to a consortium (“the Consortium”) selected by GOC to implement and manage this Initiative, are the following:

Equality Fund (“EF”), formerly MATCH International Centre;
Toronto Foundation (“TF or the Foundation”); and
World University Service of Canada (“WUSC”).

In August 2019, a Contribution Agreement (“CA”) was executed by GOC and the Parties to the Consortium.

Investment Policy Statement for the Equality Fund Government Investment Pool – Toronto Foundation (2022)