Supporting Economic Justice via Gender-inclusive Sourcing in Colombia

WiSE PhD Researcher, Carolina Herrera Cano, shares a blog on her insightful research on economic justice and gender-inclusive sourcing in Columbia.

Supporting Economic Justice via Gender-inclusive Sourcing in Colombia

As part of its commitment to global development, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group has been working to address gender imbalances in supply chains in developing countries. Specifically, IFC aims to connect women-led businesses to new markets in order to contribute to increasing the “less than one per cent of procurement purchases made by large companies [that] is earned by women-owned businesses” (World Bank, 2017, https://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/3388). In alliance with the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) and the Norwegian Government, they are implementing in Colombia the project Sourcing2Equal (https://www.ifc.org/en/where-we-work/latin-america-and-the-caribbean/gender-lac/sourcing2equal-colombia ), a programme that aims to increase access to corporate procurement opportunities for women-owned and -led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs).

The strategy comprehends two approaches, one with corporations and another one with representatives of WSMEs. The work with corporations focuses on providing connections to WSMEs suppliers, as well as a peer learning platform and expert advisory services to expand their experiences and best practices in gender-inclusive sourcing (https://www.ifc.org/content/dam/ifc/doc/2024/sourcing2equalcolombiacorporatebriefen.pdf). With the WSMEs, the work focuses on strengthening their skills to access and compete in the procurement market, including networking, identifying corporate clients and learning about the obstacles that women face in business, specifically when dealing with corporations (https://www.ifc.org/content/dam/ifc/doc/2024/2024-sourcing2equalcolombia-general-brochure-SP.pdf). This module with WSMEs is being developed in alliance with Universidad EAFIT, the training ally for Sourcing2Equal in Colombia.

My job as part of the training team has been to develop online workshops on gender equality challenges and opportunities in corporate purchasing. The group of participants consists of about 150 women-led SMEs in the three main cities, Bogota, Medellin and Cali, that come from different sectors, including manufacturing and services (often with women underrepresentation). In the module, we discuss key concepts related to gender equality, reflect on the internal and external barriers to gender equality, and share experiences related to practical cases. I feel very honoured to be a member of this project; it is amazing how international organisations, governments, corporations, and local partners can work together to unlock the potential of WSMEs. Moreover, it is inspiring to see how women in my country overcome barriers and build and transform businesses and communities. Certainly, gender-inclusive sourcing promotes gender equality and economic justice.