Leading Companies Join Forces to Drive Women's Empowermment in Supply Chains

Chiara Corazza, Managing Director, Women’s Forum for the Economy & Society and Fares Sayegh, Vice-President, Global Supply Network and Business Services, Procter & Gamble, making the announcement about the Daring Circle

Along with its strategic members – P&G, L’Oréal and Publicis Groupe – the Women’s Forum
for the Economy & Society is delighted to announce the launch of the Women & Supplier
Diversity Daring Circles. The Daring Circles, led by P&G, will partner with WEConnect
International – a global, corporate-led non-profit that facilitates inclusive and sustainable
economic growth by empowering and connecting women business owners – as well as with
UN Women through its EU-funded programme WE EMPOWER in G7 countries and the
Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) secretariat.

There are approximately 224 million women entrepreneurs worldwide who participate in the
ownership of nearly 35% of firms in the formal economy. However, on average, less than 1% of global corporate or government spend is made to women-owned businesses. This is a missed opportunity of enormous proportions, not only for women’s economic and social
empowerment but also for the businesses, governments and other organisations that stand
to benefit from more diverse, innovative and agile supply chains.

Through their supply chain practices, large corporations can have a significant positive impact on women. They can do this by supporting businesses that are owned by, led by and
that empower women, and by encouraging suppliers and other companies to adopt policies
and practices that promote women’s empowerment.

Our ambition
The Women & Supplier Diversity Daring Circles will seek to:

• Advance the current understanding of the state of supplier diversity in Europe, and build measurement and scorecard principles for women’s economic empowerment
• Take individual and collective action to set up the infrastructure that will enable all companies to improve their supplier diversity and supply chain practices
• Establish, through the Women’s Forum, further Women’s Businesses Enterprise certification* capabilities in Europe, which will facilitate access to the supply chains of major international corporations
• Build the capabilities and networks of women suppliers in our supply chains and beyond
• Help large companies and their suppliers to adopt gender-responsive practices, support the communication of the business case for supplier diversity, and facilitate knowledge sharing opportunities and dissemination of best practices

Our call to action
The Women’s Forum and the Daring Circles partners call upon women-owned businesses in
Europe to self-register* with WEConnect and for all businesses in Europe to sign onto the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles.

We invite partners of the Women’s Forum, as well as institutions, experts and other
organisations to join the Daring Circles. We also welcome the interest of Knowledge Partners
whose expertise and research capacity will help drive the Daring Circles' impactful agenda.

This is a collaborative effort between the partners of the Women’s Forum, WEConnect International and UN Women. Notably, competitors and organisations from multiple industries are coming together to take concrete actions to work on this solution together and have an impact. The Daring Circles will shape and deliver an ambition of more diverse and gender responsive supply chains, serving as an accelerator for women’s economic empowerment.