Empowering Women
Growing equality in Latin America and the Caribbean
Why invest in women and girls? why latin america?
Ilu is an Aymara word meaning
“to plant”, and it represents our commitment to cultivating a
world where women and girls in Latin America and the Caribbean lead their fullest and most productive lives.
ILU Women’s Empowerment Fund
The Ilu Women Empowerment Fund’s investment strategy places strong emphasis on women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship. The target fund size is US $35 million, with US $25 million already committed and US $14 million deployed. After successfully closing the first round of fundraising from catalytic investors, including the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), Canadian foundations and Credit Unions, we are planning a second round to raise another US $10 million.
The Ilu Fund makes senior and subordinated debt investments in Latin America and the Caribbean with a focus on transactions in the US $1 to $3 million range. It invests in a diversified portfolio of high impact businesses that promote women in leadership and governance, products and services that meet the needs of women and girls, gender-sensitive value chains and equity.
Portfolio investments include financial institutions that provide integrated and thoughtfully designed services for low-income women, including access to healthcare, educational loans, financial services, and technical assistance, as well as gender-smart investments in renewable energy, affordable housing and social enterprise.
Spotlight On Meaningful Impact
Pro Mujer
Pro Mujer is a leading women’s development organization serving 300,000 women across 6 countries in Latin America. They have disbursed $3.6 billion in small loans since 1990. With three decades of experience serving women entrepreneurs, Pro Mujer provides an integrated set of services to help underserved women to reach their full potential including financial products, primary and preventative health care services, and business education.
Pro Mujer continues to pilot new service delivery and technologies to efficiently reach more vulnerable populations, including apps to help women access health care and counselling services for gender based violence.
Impact
- $2,000,000 (CAD) Senior debt & Preferred Equity Investment
- 90% Female clients
- 762,000 Health services
- 101,000 Cancer screenings
- <$400 Average loan size
Finca Haiti
FINCA Haiti SA is a microfinance institution serving 45,000 customers, 85% of whom are women, across 8 branches. Finca Haiti not only reaches out to unbanked women clients but is also building up a staff and senior management team that is mostly women.
In 2017, FINCA Haiti SA entered into a CAD 7 million partnership with Global Affairs Canada to scale up financial inclusion efforts, targeting low-income Haitian women in particular, leading to improved living conditions, health and education.
Our loan is an example of how ‘blended finance’ involving the public and private sector working together can be used to sustainably support the growth of impact businesses in frontier markets.
Impact
- $1,000,000 (CAD) Senior debt
- 90% Female clients
- 80% Female head office staff
- 13,500 Mobile loan disbursements
Piscis
In addition to businesses supporting women entrepreneurs building small or micro businesses, we also support small and medium enterprises with women owners, management and staff.
PISCIS was founded in Peru in 1978 with trout processing factories in Quichuay (Huancayo) and in Characas (Puno). It began to export trout from Lake Titicaca in 1981, initially to Sweden and today to a variety of countries.
The PISCIS sustainable trout farming business hires almost entirely women at their fish processing plant in southern Peru. The long textile tradition in southern Andean Peru has resulted in a local workforce that has a good skills match for work undertaken at the PISCIS factories.
Impact
- $1,000,000 (CAD) Senior debt
- 70% Female employees
- Leading environmental practices and training for small producers
We support the Sustainable Development Goals
The Ilu Fund delivers strong financial returns while also providing meaningful and measurable social and environmental benefits, with a specific focus on advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically:
and we are making a measurable impact on the quality of life of women and girls.
The ILU Fund’s investment process integrates gender considerations into investment screening, due diligence and monitoring:
● Implementation of a gender smart evaluation framework and scorecard
● Measurement and evaluation of gender metrics for reporting to stakeholders
● Rolling out targeted and culturally relevant inclusion training for portfolio company management teams
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