Giving Compass' Take:

• ImpactAlpha interviews Shalaka Joshi from International Finance Corp. about the importance of incorporating gender equity into enterprises large and small (she has helped 50 banks in 34 countries lend money to female entrepreneurs).

• Are NGOs doing enough to make sure women voices are heard? It goes beyond just giving them a seat at the table: Investments must be made.

• In case you needed more reasons, here's another multimedia piece about why gender equity is a smart investment.

Shalaka Joshi is the South Asia “gender lead” of the International Finance Corp., the private-finance arm of the World Bank.

So she can tick off the impact of the IFC’s Banking on Women initiative, which has mobilized more than $1.3 billion to help get 50 banks in 34 countries lending to women-owned small businesses. With a profitable new line of business, the banks are now lending on their own.

Likewise, IFC technical support helped Ecom, the world’s third-largest coffee distributor, improve productivity by boosting the skills and status of women farmers.

“It’s not about a nice-to-have, a do-this-to-make-yourself feel good,” Joshi said in a video interview with ImpactAlpha’s David Bank at last fall’s SOCAP conference in San Francisco. “There’s a crucial business case for why you should embed gender into enterprises at all kinds of scales, all kinds of ways.”

Watch the interview with Shalaka Joshi about embedding gender into business from ImpactAlpha.