Today (March 8) 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 accelerate action for female equality, challenge gender stereotypes, and call out bias and discrimination.
The Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada embraces the 2025 International Women’s Day theme “Accelerate Action” highlighting the importance of swift and decisive steps to address gender discrimination and global challenges impacting all women, non-binary, two-spirit, and gender-diverse peoples. International Women’s Day 2025 also recognizes the diversity of female inclusion, advocating for rights, equality, and empowerment “for all women and girls.” Women continue to face systematic barriers in both personal and professional spheres, barriers that necessitate collective and accelerated action to dismantle. 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, along with financial support from a number of private sector partners, has also enabled the Foundation to increase women-only business missions to Asia and expand the networking activities of CanWIN.
Through these and other efforts, APF Canada will continue to advocate for the advancement of women’s rights, equality, and empowerment. This International Women’s Day, we encourage you to follow @womensday and #AccelerateAction through your social media channels and to visit www.internationalwomensday.com to learn more about this important day of celebration and support for women.
