UN Women and Visa Foundation Join Forces to Support Impact Businesses through the UN Women Care and Climate Entrepreneurship Accelerator

[Press release]
[For immediate release]

Bangkok, Thailand — UN Women and Visa Foundation have announced the launch of the UN Women Care and Climate Entrepreneurship Accelerator. This initiative will empower women-owned and diverse small businesses that focus on the care economy, the green economy and the intersection of both economies.

The UN Women and Visa Foundation partnership will address the urgent need for climate action and innovations in the care economy in the Asia-Pacific and the Latin America regions. The effects of climate change and demographic shifts in these regions are expected to increase the need for care services and for the creation of new jobs to meet these needs. These critical issues were highlighted at COP 29, the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference, and during Beijing+30, the ongoing review marking the 30th anniversary of the landmark Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on women’s rights.

Over the next two years, the UN Women Care and Climate Entrepreneurship Accelerator aims to create more than 50,000 new or improved livelihoods in the care and green economies, especially for women. The Accelerator will prioritize solutions that expand access to affordable care and address women’s unequal care responsibilities by creating new and better jobs and opportunities for women in the care and green economies. Recognizing the critical roles that women play in building a sustainable future, the partnership will provide women-owned and diverse enterprises with essential business support, mentorship, and access to care- and green-economy-focused networks.

Additionally, the partnership will foster cross-regional collaboration and knowledge-sharing. UN Women will leverage insights from the Asia-Pacific region to support and exchange best practices with care economy entrepreneurs in Latin America, particularly Mexico. The initiative will also engage policymakers, advocates, financers and enterprise-support organizations to strengthen the ecosystem for impact businesses and to catalyse further investments.

“The challenges we are facing require rethinking and collaborative action,” says Katja Freiwald, Regional Lead for Women’s Economic Empowerment and Migration, UN Women Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific. “The partnership with Visa Foundation is crucial to catalyse and support the innovation ability of impact enterprises, especially women entrepreneurs, in building a future that benefits both people and the planet.”

“This partnership reflects our shared commitment to investing in solutions that address the world’s most pressing challenges,” says Payal Pathak, Senior Director, Visa Foundation. “We believe that supporting diverse businesses in the care and green economies will create a ripple effect of positive change across communities and demonstrate the power of businesses to create a more sustainable and inclusive world.”

Through the UN Women Care and Climate Entrepreneurship Accelerator, Visa Foundation will be the first partner joining the UN Women Gender Action Lab (GAL) – Innovation for Impact, an initiative supported by the Government of Australia through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and in collaboration with the private sector, aiming to foster private-sector innovations and concrete actions that advance women’s empowerment and help build more inclusive economies across the Asia-Pacific region. This initiative marks the first in a series of ambitious partnerships under the GAL umbrella, demonstrating a strong commitment to multi-stakeholder collaboration and driving gender-transformative change by 2030 and beyond.