Investing in Pathways to Employment

A guide for investors

Many investors already invest in women’s economic empowerment and youth employment as a critical lever for economic development. Yet rarely are these investment portfolios designed to address the catalytic promise of longer-term economic outcomes by intentionally looking at the period of adolescence and young adulthood for females — one in eight people in the world . Adolescent girls and young women are a significant global market that is currently underserved, especially in LMICs with young populations. They are future employees, customers, decision-makers, influencers, suppliers and leaders — investing in their success makes economic sense and has social impact.

Kore Global partnered with UNICEF, Volta Capital and the GenderSmart Investing team to assess the role that private capital can play in reducing the gendered barriers that adolescent girls and young women face on their pathways from education to employment. The engagement included an in-depth diagnostic of the gender barriers to school to work transitions and case studies of the business models responding to these barriers, in low- and middle-income countries.

Our assessment reveals a more complex story about a network of factors that influence how girls and young women transition to work – and presents opportunities for a gender-smart investment approach that addresses persistent gender gaps in economic participation. The assessment identified over $21 billion of existing impact investment flows that could be tailored to better reach adolescent girls and young women on these pathways. This project culminated in a public call to action published for investors and raised the profile of pathways to employment (P2E) actors in low- and middle-income countries among public and private funders.