2X Global Summit 2026 Special Edition

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Subject: 2X Global Summit 2026 Special Edition

2X Global: Unlocking gender-smart capital at scale

Dear Friend,

It’s that time of year when you get an extra edition of our newsletter in your inbox and that’s because the 2X Global Summit 2026 is just around the corner.

This year’s Summit will take place in Montréal, Canada, from 15–17 September, hosted in partnership with Global Affairs Canada and FinDev Canada. Our annual gathering brings together members, strategic partners, capital providers and field-builders from across the investment ecosystem to connect, challenge ideas and shape the future of finance for women.

Under the theme Grounded Capital. Global Partners, this year’s Summit will explore the key role of the 2X Global community in today’s financial system. At a time when impact investing and gender equity initiatives face headwinds, our message is clear: this is a community united in its commitment to financing women, grounded in the growing body of evidence that demonstrates the financial, social, and economic benefits of investing in women and girls.

Over the course of these three days, we’ll delve into what it takes to build a financial system which works - for women and hence for everyone. From showcasing investment standards and innovative finance models to building the partnerships needed to move more capital towards women, the 2X Global Summit is where the work gets done.

As noted in this message from Patricia Pena, Assistant Deputy Minister, Global Affairs Canada, bringing the Summit to Canada marks an important chapter for 2X Global.

Looking to the 2X Global Summit 2026: Patricia Pena, Asst Deputy Minister, Global Affairs Canada

It was on a stage in Canada that the country helped launch the 2X Challenge in 2018, during its G7 Presidency - laying the foundation for what has become the global movement that is 2X Global today.

Following previous Summit editions in Europe, Africa and Asia, it feels fitting to return to the country where it all began.

Scroll down for a preview of some of this year’s sessions, along with a curated selection of articles, research and insights connected to this year’s Summit themes and speakers.

In Community,

2X Global team

Explore the Summit page.

2X Global Summit Reads

Thoughts from our Co-Host on the first 2X Global Summit in Africa.

What does courageous leadership look like when the context keeps changing? In this episode of Jessica Espinoza’s Catch the Upswing podcast, former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres reflects on the leadership behind the Paris Agreement, rebuilding trust, resilience in moments of crisis, and what this defining climate decade demands from leaders. It is an especially strong companion to the Summit’s conversations on climate finance and maintaining clarity of purpose amid geopolitical and economic volatility.

What happens when financing incentives are designed around women’s realities? Shell Foundation shares results from a gender-focused results-based financing pilot testing whether smarter incentives can help clean-energy businesses reach women while strengthening commercial performance. The findings offer practical lessons on affordability, product design and how catalytic capital can unlock both income gains and new markets.

A practitioner's guide to gender beyond the labelled bond Amundi have published a practitioner's guidebook on gender-smart fixed income. It's organised by who has to act: a readiness checklist for issuers, issuer-level screening and stewardship guidance for investors, and a map of what exchanges, regulators and DFIs need to build. Luda Svystunova, a co-author, joins the Investing in Women in Public Markets session on Day two at the summit.

What does 2X qualification mean for businesses in practice? New research from 2X Global and Kore Global explores the motivations, commercial value and strategic advantages of 2X qualification for investees — and how investors can help strengthen its value and uptake. The findings offer a timely lens for 2X Challenge Full Circle at the Summit, where our partners will reflect on what it took to build the initiative, what has changed as a result, and what its next phase can achieve.

Closing the $1.7 Billion Gap: How MEDA Is Advancing Gender-lens Investing in Tanzania's Financial Sector Tanzanian women own 54% of the country's small businesses and face a $1.7 billion financing gap. MEDA worked directly with financial service providers to close it — and the resulting commitments are concrete rather than aspirational: gender-disaggregated data systems, women-centred loan products, internal gender action plans. For those attending the Summit, this is a useful lead-in to our session Valuing Financial Wellbeing on September 17, where the Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank will join the conversation on designing products around women's realities.

FinDev Canada has made its first direct investment in Cote D’Ivoire, with the signing of a EUR 40 million loan to NSIA Banque Côte d’Ivoire S.A. (“NSIA”), a leading bank in Côte d’Ivoire. The financing will support NSIA in improving access to financial services for underserved populations, including small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and women-owned or led SMEs (WSMEs).

Challenges and opportunities facing women in fintech.

Measuring women’s economic empowerment - which metrics matter? Participants at the 2X Global Summit are brought together by the shared belief that women’s economic empowerment is not just nice to have but an economic necessity with compelling benefits to the whole of society. But how do you measure this economic empowerment to ensure it’s impactful? A recent policy brief from the data team at our Summit partner FINCA provides rigorous statistical evidence to show which indicators matter, with recommendations for programme development and design.

Beyond Inclusion: Can Gender Lens Investing Deliver Feminist Futures?
As gender lens investing evolves, the conversation is shifting from whether capital reaches women to how finance can contribute to lasting changes in power, ownership and economic systems. This new post on our Field Notes blog, co-authored by 2X Global and IDRC, explores what a more transformative approach could look like — and why locally led investment, care, climate action and diverse forms of capital will be critical to building feminist futures.

What happens when gender and climate are considered together in investment decisions? Long-time collaborators Heading for Change (HfC) outline their experience in a new post on our Field Notes blog which look at how HfC is putting capital, catalytic grants and field-building to work to demonstrate the opportunities at the intersection of climate and gender — and help more investors see women as drivers of the climate transition.

Women spearheading research into an overlooked medium for medical diagnostics.

How to reach women at every stage of their financial journey. In this compelling conversation from FINCA, hear how putting women at the center of financial inclusion, investment and product innovation can help unlock greater economic opportunity and resilience. This conversation explores practical approaches to reaching women where they are, backing women-led businesses and using data and research to design financial products that respond to women’s realities.

How do you embed gender lens investing into day-to-day investment decisions? British International Investment’s (BII) Gender & Inclusive Finance Toolkit is a free, practical resource for investors, fund managers and the businesses they invest in. With plug-and-play tools across the investment lifecycle, case studies from BII's portfolio, and an Inclusive Business section for portfolio companies, every resource is designed for real world application. Summit participants will learn more about how to use the toolkit on Day 2 at the session "Built to Last: Investing in Women".

Moving Money into Women-Led Businesses in Southeast Asia shows the strong, investable women‑led businesses, but capital isn’t flowing to them because of structural mismatches. As financing becomes more concentrated, fundamentals‑driven investors have a timely opening to back high‑quality women‑founded companies and achieve competitive returns. For lenders, women‑led Cash Generators present a scalable, lower‑risk segment where cash‑flow underwriting, tailored repayment terms, repeat‑borrower facilities, and selective risk‑sharing can unlock significant lending volume.

The participation multiplier: telling a fuller story of gender lens investing. This new blog post from our member Advance Global Capital, asks the question - ‘what if the true impact of gender-lens investing extends well beyond the women directly receiving capital?’. Drawing on its own portfolio, it examines data which shows that when women receive capital, the impact goes well beyond the woman receiving financing.

What happens when investors challenge the assumptions that keep women out of finance? Finnfund’s latest impact story looks at how its investees have changed lending practices, product design and internal policies to reach women who were previously excluded from formal finance. In India, for example, Finnfund worked with microfinance providers to move away from marital status as a proxy for credit risk; subsequent experience showed that lending to unmarried women created a new business opportunity without increasing credit risk.

Why Care is Climate Infrastructure. That climate change is shifting and intensifying care demands which statistically fall far more heavily on women, is not in question. This report from Canada’s International Development Research Center (IDRC) examines how the intersection of climate change and existing care system constraints are shaping women-led MSMEs and what can be done to address both.

…And also Agriculture Infrastructure. What happens when we treat care as essential agricultural infrastructure rather than a private household responsibility? Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is supporting a pilot programme for cooperative-level care investments across three Costa Rican coffee enterprises to test how investing in childcare and other care solutions can strengthen women’s participation in the agricultural workforce, improve worker retention and productivity, and build more resilient businesses.

What kind of support advances gender equity at an organisational level? A recent study funded by IDRC examined whether and how funding, engagement and technical support from IDRC and other research for development (R4D) funders influenced gender equality and inclusion related change processes within partner institutions.

We look forward to meeting many of you in Montréal! Be a part of 2X Global and join our member-exclusive events.

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Last year's 2X Global Summit in Manila was an example of what bold, collective action on gender-smart investing looks like. Returning to Canada, the country where the foundation of 2X Global was laid is a special moment, creating an opportunity for both reflection and forward movement.

We’re proud to count on the support of leading organisations joining us in Montréal to amplify gender-smart solutions. The following organisations are helping to make the 2X Global Summit 2026 a reality.

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Subject: 2X Global Summit 2026 Special Edition