Today marks International Women’s Day, a global day to celebrate and support women’s social, economic, cultural, and political achievements. The day also marks a universal call to action for accelerating women’s equality, challenging gender stereotypes, and calling out bias and discrimination.
The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada embraces the World Health Organization’s International Women’s Day 2024 theme of renewing our collective commitment to achieving gender equality and to “invest in women” to “accelerate progress.” We stand beside like-minded organizations and institutions in supporting the work, achievements, ideas, and experiences of girls and women across Canada and around the world.
Our work in this space includes supporting women and girls in closing the gender gap and building the capacity of women-led businesses through the APEC-Canada Growing Business Partnership, creating an international ecosystem of women assisting women in international business through the Canadian Women’s International Network (CanWIN), and providing Canadian women-led or -owned companies with the opportunity and support they need to access key markets and investors in Asia through our Women-only Business Mission Series.
We are thankful to the Government of Canada for supporting this important work under the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES), a nearly C$7-billion initiative helping remove systemic barriers women face in accessing the financing, resources, and networks they need to start up, scale up, and reach international markets. This funding also helps support the Foundation in increasing women-only business missions to Asia and expanding the networking activities of CanWIN.
Through these and other efforts, APF Canada will continue to advocate for the advancement of women’s equality. This International Women’s Day, we encourage you to follow @womensday and #InspireInclusion through your social media channels and to visit www.internationalwomensday.com to learn more about this important day of celebration and support for women.
