“Gender equality is both a matter of justice and a tremendous business opportunity”

What is 2X Global and the 2X Challenge? 

Emmanuelle Riedel Drouin: The 2X Challenge is an international initiative that remains far too little known, even though it has profoundly transformed the way financial actors tackle the issue of gender equality. 2X Global is the organisation that spearheads and coordinates the 2X Challenge.

It all began in 2018, at the G7 summit in Montreal. Several development finance institutions – including Proparco – made an ambitious commitment to mobilise more private capital in support of gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. There was no framework to enable the private sector to make a tangible contribution or to showcase the commitment of pioneering organisations in this area.

The 2X Challenge was born out of this goal. It provides a practical framework for identifying businesses that genuinely empower women through financing, employment, leadership roles, entrepreneurship and access to suitable products. Women represent a huge market in terms of talent, purchasing power and investment.

Today, 2X Global is driving this momentum through several programmes, including 2X Ignite, which is helping a new generation of women to emerge in the investment sphere. Ultimately, we all share the same conviction: gender equality is both a matter of justice and a tremendous business opportunity.

Proparco is a founding member of the 2X Challenge. How has this framework changed the way Proparco factors gender considerations into its financing processes? 

The change has been significant. In 2018, Proparco was only just beginning to develop its approach to gender in the private sector. AFD, our parent organisation, had launched its first strategic framework on gender back in 2014, but this could not be applied to Proparco – which works with actors in the private-sector. Multilateral banks, covering both the public and private sectors, had developed their own gender-responsive methods, but this was not yet the case for most bilateral organisations. Everyone was doing their own thing.

The 2X Challenge changed the game by creating a shared framework and a common language between development finance institutions and the private sector. The 2018 G7 summit truly marked the start of unprecedented cooperation between development banks, to co-design a framework that was both ambitious and properly operational both for us and our clients.

Between 2023 and 2025, we worked along with our peer institutions to assess our portfolios to verify the effectiveness of the 2X methodology. Proparco drew many lessons from this, which we quickly translated into tangible action.

Proparco has grown alongside the 2X Challenge, actively contributed to it, and adopted it as the methodological benchmark for its gender approach, which has now become a strategic indicator. Obviously, nothing is perfect, but we have made significant progress and together we are all very proud of this.

This year’s 2X Global Summit is being held in Canada – back where the 2X Challenge was launched eight years ago. Since then, the international environment for gender-related issues and women’s rights has clearly deteriorated…

Returning to Montreal, where the 2X Challenge began, at such a difficult time for gender equality, is a highly symbolic moment. For me, this demonstrates the resilience and determination of the collective group we have formed with our peer institutions from the 2X Challenge.
 

In 2024, according to UN Women, we witnessed a decline in women’s rights in one in four countries. But we are still here, on the same path. Our goals and our agenda remain unchanged: combating inequality and promoting gender equality are key pillars of Proparco’s strategy. 

Along with our partners, we are also immensely proud to help preserve and strengthen the progress made in terms of the equality of men and women. France is championing its new feminist diplomacy, launched last year and set to run until 2030, and AFD Group remains proud to be a feminist development agency.

We gain strength from our values, and the 2X Global Summit gives us the opportunity to reaffirm our commitments alongside like-minded partners.

Find out more about Proparco’s action: Acting for greater equality 

What are the key issues at this year’s 2X Global Summit? 

I can’t tell you everything right now. You’ll have to follow us on social media to find out the exact details of this year’s event! But we do stress how important it is for Proparco to demonstrate our commitment by being present at the 2X Summit alongside development institutions and private sector organisations that share our values. We’ll be meeting a number of clients whose gender policies we’ve assessed and who have now become eligible for the 2X Challenge.

More generally, we really want to celebrate the progress we have made: over €3.6 billion worth of 2X-aligned projects have been financed since 2018, including €2.2 billion over the last three years – almost double the combined total of the first two Challenges. The 3rd Challenge, running from 2024 to 2027, aims to mobilise US$20 billion worth of capital for gender equality. This demonstrates the key role Proparco plays in financing gender equality. 

Lastly, in Montreal, I look forward to signing an agreement with a long-standing partner to give women a greater role in the financial sector.

Proparco has made significant progress on these issues in recent years. How does it provide its clients with practical support as they work towards greater gender equality?

Proparco has developed expertise in this domain both in and out of house. 

We started by working on ourselves: incorporating a gender perspective into each stage of our investment cycle, from prospection to decision-making, and training our teams in ‘Gender Lens Investing’, both at head office and in regional offices around the world.

And a little something extra! We deployed a massive effort in internal communication and awareness-raising, particularly around gender-based violence. It is difficult to help our clients to progress without having walked this path ourselves, for obvious reasons of legitimacy, credibility and effectiveness.

For our clients, we have developed turnkey technical assistance programmes on internal practices, particularly in HR: assessment, strategy and action plans. Financial intermediaries also benefit from dedicated support to incorporate Gender Lens Investing into their own investment cycle, with made-to-measure solutions where necessary. 

In other words, we are better able to identify the gender equality issues specific to each client and their impact on their operations. And we are now better equipped to help them progress. Tomorrow, we will do even better!