Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI)

ÉLan’s work in this sector ended in JULY 2021.

Context

Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) were cross-cutting priorities for Élan RDC because poor women and, socially excluded groups like people with disabilities are particularly disadvantaged in accessing and benefiting from economic opportunities in DRC, although they can represent important business opportunities for the Congolese private sector.

To that end, the GESI team provided support to Élan RDC partners in the agriculture, energy, finance, and cross-board trade sectors to better understand the benefits of considering women (as employees, producers, members, or clients) and adopting gender-inclusive practices at a different level of their organizations.

There were two main challenges to foster GESI considerations among Élan RDC's partners that have been identified as:

• The lack of consideration and limited understanding of GESI: In a complex operating environment, gender inclusion doesn’t appear as a priority for many businesses. Because of limited efforts in collecting data, they often overlook the growth potential of reaching female customers. Although some companies have good practices in place (e.g., gender-balanced workforce, gender-responsive recruitment) they are not always formalized and embedded in their corporate strategy. The lack of knowledge, engagement, and often-needed technical support to implement/formalize gender-inclusive strategies, are the common challenges encountered by those companies.

• The COVID-19 crisis and its economic impacts: the pandemic has indeed affected many of Élan RDC partners’ operations, which have prioritized core activities and focused the companies’ management and teams’ efforts on running contingency plans. Therefore, undermining progress towards organizational change projects such as gender inclusion.

Strategy

To improve the perception of Élan RDC partners on the commercial benefits of having inclusive practices within their business activities, the GESI team used the three following approaches:

1. Collecting data and sharing market insights, which highlight new or overlooked opportunities;

2. Encouraging market segmentation to seize opportunities to generate revenues from female customers segment with differentiated marketing or products and services catered to their needs;

3. Empowering women employees and members, by bringing evidence and training on the benefits of building a more inclusive organization/association.

Following the COVID-19 outbreak, the GESI team also raised partners’ attention on the disproportionate adverse effects that the crisis may cause to women and, after consultations with other key stakeholders (professional organizations, women leaders), delivered several capacity-building activities to raise awareness and reinforce GESI knowledge and practical skills among the partners’ operational staff.

Results

The results of the evidenced-based and commercially driven approach to GESI paid off. The partners have been responsive to the GESI support activities and showed an increased interest and engagement with some of them taking concrete actions or initiating pilot activities.

• With Agriculture sector, Élan RDC shared industry insights for boosting women’s participation in agricultural extension training.

• With Access to Finance sector, the GESI awareness workshops have resulted in concrete actions to incorporate gender considerations.

As COVID-19 crisis has disproportionately impacted women businesses, and they are still facing many challenges to get access to credit, it is essential to sustain GESI awareness activities with financial institutions to support and increase lending to women entrepreneurs. For that reason, Élan RDC provided capacity building on GESI to the Fonds d’appui a la microfinance (FPM), which already offers technical assistance to hundreds of microfinance institutions (MFIs) across DRC. By training FPM’s project managers to provide GESI awareness workshops to local MFIs, Élan RDC reach will continue to be amplified over time.

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