The Inclusive and Equitable Local Development (IELD) is a joint UNCDF, UNDP, and UN Women global initiative that addresses structural impediments women face including lack of adequate infrastructure and access to services and markets, which exacerbate gender gaps and prevent women from participating fully and equally in the economy. The programme addresses these these barriers through local public and private investments, with a particular emphasis on unlocking domestic capital for women's economic empowerment and entrepreneurship. IELD uses a unique three-agency partnership to strategically approach delivery of the SDGs, using each agency's niche and comparative advantage in programming on gender equality.

IELD has rolled out in three selected pilot countries in 2017 including Bangladesh, Tanzania and Uganda. The programme is expected to be expanded to 5-10 countries during the five-year implementation period. Currently, in collaboration with UN Women and UNDP, technical support is provided to central and local governments, women entrepreneurs and domestic banks to design, implement, and sustain local public and private investments that directly contribute to enhancing women's economic empowerment at the local level. Programme Approach: The programme uses UNCDF's local development finance instruments to achieve these objectives. Programme responds to local needs in ways that foster women's economic empowerment. We identify locally-generated high impact investable projects and uses local development finance instruments to unlock domestic public and private capital to finance these investments through the provision of grants, collateral guarantees, seed capital, and thus mitigating risk. Specifically, the programme uses the following approaches: Diagnostics and Evidence Building: This involves mapping the local socio-economic policy and institutional contexts, including assessment of major bottlenecks to women's economic empowerment using a gender sensitive Local Economic Assessment (LEA) tool. The diagnostic identifies, in consultation with local governments and local communities; (i) the potentials for local economic development, (ii) the most pressing barriers faced by women at the local level that impede their participation in income-generating activities, and, (iii) prioritize beneficial investments into productive infrastructures that enhance connectivity and access to services. Design and Implement Public and Private Pipeline of Investments: This approach builds on the diagnostics and findings of the LEA and involves development and implementation of locally-produced, targeted, public and private investments that accelerate gender-responsive local economic development in priority areas and sectors. A unique investment tool, Women's Economic Empowerment Index (WEEI), that uses standard acceptance and risk criteria combined with localized gender criteria is used to identify most viable investments with maximum potential to promote women's economic empowerment. IELD introduces various innovative financing mechanisms for these investments including: Performance Based Grants (PBGs): in the form of capital transfers provided to local government financial systems, either directly to the local bodies themselves or through a proxy intergovernmental fiscal transfer to finance gender responsive productive infrastructure to boost women's engagement in the local economy. Structured Project Finance: provides structured non-recourse financing solutions, in the form of collateral guarantees, for small and medium enterprise (SME) and infrastructure projects that are selective, strategic and catalytic, to reduce risk and unlock local sources of capital.

Enhanced local government competencies and Business Development Support: As a value-added component, IELD enhances competencies of the key local authorities to enable effective planning and budgeting that supports gender-equitable local economic development interventions and productive investments. Technical support is provided to identify entry points in local government plans, budgets, and investment frameworks to systematically integrate gender-responsive measures in the design, planning and budgeting of local development investments. Technical support is also provided to women entrepreneurs and gender sensitive SMEs to assist in business development and growth. Local value chains concentrated heavily with women workers/suppliers are provided required support for growth and better accessibility to the market.

UNCDF, UNDP, and UN Women