Giving Compass' Take:

• P&G committed to sourcing $100 million from women-owned businesses in response to Global Citizen's call for companies to alter their supply chains. 

• How will this significantly impact the lives of women and increase the potential for economic development?

•  Read about why investing in women-led social enterprises is the future. 

Skills, knowledge, and know-how, also known as human capital, make up a significant portion of global wealth. But that is not distributed equally around the world. Not only do developing countries have less human capital wealth, but also the women who live in them, despite the fact that investing in, educating, and empowering girls and women creates significant returns on investment.

Fostering women’s labor force participation, business ownership, and productivity would not only add billions to the global economy but it would also make companies more effective.

Women in developing countries often face many barriers to successfully starting and growing businesses. They don't just face difficulty in getting financing — they face cultural, legal, and policy barriers, too. Over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men, and women’s work remains undervalued compared to men's, with women making 60% to 75% of men’s wages on average. Further, of the trillions of dollars spent by large corporations on suppliers every year, only 1% goes to women-owned businesses globally.

In 2017, Global Citizen partnered with WEConnect International to call on multinational corporations to source through their supply chains from women-owned businesses in developing countries. In response to 17,755 actions by Global Citizens, Procter & Gamble (P&G) committed at the 2017 Global Citizen Festival to source $100 million from women-owned businesses.

Read the full article about women-owned businesses by Neha Shah at Global Citizen