Indeed, investing is part of capitalism, but the question lies in making capitalism work better as a market-based economy, which has been often far from perfect. Therefore, as smart investors, we have to assess opportunities beyond the silo mentality by looking meticulously for risk reduction, performance and accountability and pushing for greater long-term impacts, which go hand in hand with good financial performance.

Women are one of the world's most undervalued resources. Half of the world population is female, yet only 51 percent of women participate in the labor force, compared to 83 percent of men. Indonesia’s figures are not very different: According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the labor force participation rate for women is 52 percent, against 82 percent for men.

The yawning gap only shows that there are still many economic "spaces" that women can fill and help increase economic productivity to Rp 28 trillion, according to Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) report “Investing in Women” highlighted an Indonesian coffee trading company, one of the world’s largest, which boosted productivity by 131 percent when it developed gender-specific training after identifying the knowledge gap between men and women as the key barrier to growth.

However, to tap into this opportunity, much work remains in increasing women’s participation in the workforce and closing the 50 percent gender pay gap. On top of that, women entrepreneurs, as our economic backbone, receive a disproportionate amount of financial assistance and investment. For instance, women in South Asia received only half the COVID-19 financial aid than men did. The World Bank even stated that as a result, women-owned businesses were 5.9 percent more likely to face closure than businesses owned by men.

The gender issue has become more pressing in terms of access to jobs and finance. Higher investments and assistance are needed to ensure that women have the same opportunities in realizing their full economic and business potentials. Failing to address these challenges will only slow our economic recovery.

This has led to our focus on efforts to close the gap through gender lens investing (GLI). GLI is about not only investing in women or providing funds to women, but also using gender analysis in investment consideration and decision-making. This is not limited to investing in women-led enterprises and also includes investing in women-led supply chain start-ups and other start-ups that promote workplace equity.

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