Corporate Partner
Investing in Women (IW) is an initiative of the Australian Government to catalyse inclusive economic growth and poverty reduction in South East Asia. As a champion for women and girls, IW was established to improve women’s economic participation, build markets for women and influence the private and public sector environment to promote women’s economic empowerment in the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Indonesia.
IW works with businesses and impact investors to achieve business and workplace gender equality, and partner with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, and programmes to ensure institutional and regulatory standards are effectively implemented and benefit women and girls. IW also supports the Sustainable Development Goals to be a reality for women and girls, and stand behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life.
PBCWE is under the Business Partnerships component of IW, bringing together large businesses across a wide range of sectors to form a business coalition in each country to commit to gender equality in their workplaces.
Philippine Women’s Economic Network (PhilWEN)
The Philippine Women’s Economic Network (PhilWEN) is a consortium of 6 women’s groups, representing a broad section of industries where women participate: business, professionals (middle management, CEOs, Board Directors), entrepreneurs (start-ups, SMEs, established businesses).
PhilWEN advocates the economic empowerment of women through initiatives that encompass a wide age and socio-economic reach.
EDGE Certification
The coalition members have committed to the process of identifying and setting benchmarks linked to the policies and practices that are known to promote gender equality in the workplace. This process will be facilitated in partnership with the Economic Dividends for Gender Equality (EDGE), a world leading diagnostic and certification system for workplace gender equality, designed to help companies create an optimal workplace for women and men and to benefit from it as well.
Through this process, PBCWE’s founding members have committed to 4 broad objectives:
- Close the gender pay gap;
- Progress women into leadership and management positions;
- Improve workplace participation and working conditions;
- Develop leaders and managers who will drive the gender equality agenda in their operations.
This process evaluates companies’ workplace gender equality performance against global and industry benchmarks, and the certification provides a competitive advantage in positioning the companies as gender enlightened workplaces for work, investment, and for business.
