Infrastructure’s social impact can be both positive and negative. “We focus on risk mitigation and on maximising beneficial social outcomes, always through the lens of financial value,” says Shami Nissan, a partner and head of sustainability at Actis.
Those positive and negative social outcomes include those related to gender. “We do a lot of work to safeguard against gender-based violence and harassment, while also working to create a positive impact through training programmes, economic empowerment initiatives and other projects where women are the primary beneficiaries,” Nissan explains.
For example, Actis offered solar panel installation training programmes to 1,000 women across Mexico, Brazil and Chile while investing in Latin American renewable energy business Atlas. The firm negotiated parameters with the construction company including a minimum of 10 percent women on site, while the industry average sits at around 2 percent.
Actis also includes women living in local communities in its gender impact philosophy. “We think about the communities where our infrastructure is based as our neighbours, or even our hosts, which means we advocate a model of shared value,” Nissan says. In Senegal, for example, Actis transformed an informal market where women sold fruit and vegetables into something more permanent by building concrete stalls. In India, it provided seamstress training and sewing machines to women during the pandemic, which meant they were able to create personal protective equipment and earn a salary.
Meanwhile, gender-lens investing is integral to the Private Infrastructure Development Group’s mission. “We incorporate a gender lens into the way we screen deals and how we measure outcomes,” says PIDG chief sustainable impact officer Marco Serena. “We also adopted a gender equality action plan within our own organisation, to ensure that we live the values that we espouse for our portfolio companies.”
As well as screening for gender-specific risks, PIDG uses a gender lens to prioritise deals based on the ownership of a company, management, workforce, supply chain, community relations and whether or not its products and services specifically target women. It also considers the potential to make outsized improvements to gender equality through its investments.
For example, when PIDG worked on energy projects alongside a local utility in Karachi, Pakistan, and on expanding rooftop solar energy production for commercial users in the country, it looked at why there were so few women in the workforce, particularly in management positions. “Our analysis showed that while there were a good number of female STEM graduates in the country, these women were not gaining employment,” says Serena. “We developed a training and apprenticeship scheme for those graduates for the rooftop solar, while also training women in the community who could work in some of the poorest suburbs of Karachi, going into homes as agents of the company.”
The Karachi programme was all about replacing dangerous cabling and to do that, technicians needed access to homes. Those homes were predominantly populated by women, however, which made it difficult for men to enter. “Training women agents increased the uptake of new cabling, creating a business opportunity,” Serena explains. “Having female STEM graduates enter the company created leaders in the community. Meanwhile, the Karachi grid was made more resilient to floods and less prone to electrocutions.”
PIDG also invested in Mobility for Africa, a business based in Zimbabwe that assembles electric tricycles targeting women in rural areas, allowing them to more easily transport their produce to market. “In this instance, the product was specifically designed for women, and dedicated training for women drivers was provided,” Serena says. “Furthermore, we worked with the company to ensure that jobs on the new assembly line and in the broader supply chain were made available to women.”
PIDG frequently works to improve female representation in the workforce. “We worked with a company in Cambodia’s railway sector to understand why there were so few women in the workforce. Based on those findings, we put facilities in place ranging from crèches to training programmes,” Serena says. “Meanwhile, in male-dominated industries such as Nairobi’s construction sector, we initiated programmes around safety and respect for women, as well as dispelling myths around what women are able to do.”
Impact appetite
While specialist impact infrastructure managers appear to be taking a leading role on gender-related issues, this approach is not universal. “The emphasis on gender impact in infrastructure investments is growing but still varies significantly by fund, region and specific project contexts,” says Tomás Serebrisky, infrastructure and energy sector manager at the Inter-American Development Bank. “There is a broader industry trend towards greater integration of gender considerations, driven by increasing investor demands, regulatory pressures and a growing recognition of the importance of building inclusive and sustainable infrastructure. But while progress is being made, the extent to which gender impacts are prioritised still varies widely across the industry.”
Actis’s Nissan says that LPs are increasingly focusing their attention on climate impact objectives, while it may be perceived that social issues are somewhat on the backburner. She says that in addition to the ESG backlash that has taken place among some US asset allocators, there has also been a DE&I backlash in some parts of the US, although social issues, of course, remain important.
“Establishing a baseline for gender impact is difficult because such data is often scarce across all infrastructure sectors”
Tomás Serebrisky,
Inter-American Development Bank
Serena, however, is seeing signs of increasing interest. Last year, PIDG launched South Asia’s first gender bond in Pakistan. “The idea was that proceeds would provide loans to women, enabling them to get back on their feet following floods in the country,” he explains. “It was a small bond, but it was met by appetite from investors. We also recently raised a blended debt fund for Africa, and for the first time we had commercial investors look at differentiated rates based on impact considerations, including gender. So, we are seeing increased appetite, but credibility remains key.”
Credibility, of course, requires measurement. Actis, for example, measures the percentage of women on boards, at an executive level, across the workforce and the indirect workforce. “We also ensure targets are set and progress monitored,” says Nissan. “We analyse how much community investment is geared towards female beneficiaries, as well as whether DE&I is discussed at a board level at least once a year. We take a very holistic approach.”
Measurement is not always straightforward, however. The primary challenge, says Serebrisky, involves the lack of comprehensive and accurate gender-disaggregated data. “Establishing a baseline for gender impact is difficult because such data is often scarce across all infrastructure sectors. While regional-level data can sometimes be accessed or collected during early project implementation, more granular data, such as the number of women and men employed in specific sectors like renewable energy, is frequently unavailable.”
Serena agrees that access to standardised data is critical. “There is a need for standardisation of measurement on gender equality and inclusion across the financial sector. That will help allocators compare like for like in terms of outcomes. It is still a work in progress, but that standardisation is very much needed.”