The power of procurement: How to source from women-owned businesses

In today’s economy, less than one per cent of spending by large businesses on suppliers is earned by women-owned businesses. Investing in women-owned businesses and integrating them into corporate supply chains is “smart economics” and good for business. Women-owned businesses contribute significantly to the world economy, generating millions of new employment opportunities.

This new guide provides corporations and their suppliers with a deeper understanding of the barriers and challenges preventing women-owned businesses from accessing and fully participating in local and global values chains. It provides the tools and techniques for reducing or eliminating these barriers and for leveraging the vast untapped economic potential represented by women-owned businesses. For many women, entrepreneurship offers a path to economic empowerment and it is incumbent upon corporations to help create conditions that permit this.

This guide is intended to support signatories of the Women’s Empowerment Principles, which UN Women and UN Global Compact jointly promulgate, to take action on Principle 5: Implement enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that empower women. Corporations are well positioned to promote gender equality and empower women in their workplaces, in their communities and through their purchasing policies and practices.