As impact investors look to increasingly target Sustainable Development Goal agendas for reducing gender inequality with their investments, Southeast Asia presents a region of both under-tapped potential and challenges.

Investing in Women is a $40 million Australian government initiative working with impact investors and social entrepreneurs to increase gender equality in Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. In emerging markets around the world, around 70 percent of women-owned small-and-medium sized companies find it difficult to tap into the resources of financial institutions in their countries. Closing gender-credit gaps and supporting women entrepreneurs in these underserved regions could be a major way to support growth and raise incomes in these regions.

Abhilash Mudaliar, research director for the Global Impact Investing Network, another partner in the initiative, said his group is establishing a gender-lens investment working group of select people out of the 250 member organizations globally, hopes to get better data on both the investments going toward women but the whole impact investing landscape in Southeast Asia in the near future.

Read the full article by Michael Standaert about gender equality on ImpactAlpha