The W+™ : Accelerating Investments in Women © ASHDEN/Martin Wright
February 2015
Š Aiden Dockery
W+ creates metrics to measure women’s empowerment within projects. It has created a platform to enable governments, companies and individuals to achieve transparency and effectiveness using a results-based framework to ensure progress.
The W+ quantifies and verifies benefits to women in 6 domains: Time Income/Assets Health Education and Knowledge Leadership Food Security
How it Works $ $
BENEFITS
Project
$
$ $
W+ units
Buyers
Project Developers
W+ units
STAGE 1
STAGE 2
Women benefit from projects
Women receive additional revenue
Results The first W+ project measured time savings for 7200 rural Nepalese women who replaced their wood generated stoves with those generated by biogas, relieving them of the need to collect fuel wood from the forest and saved 2.2 hours per day.
Consultations with Women Stakeholders
Development of Time Method
Baseline Survey
Measurement of Results
Issuance of Units
Direct Payments to Women
Cash Flow of a W+ Unit Transaction W+ Unit Value Components Time-saving biogas project – Nepal (Unit price: $2.40)
$1.20 Direct Share to Women1
$0.50 W+
Development2
1. Distributed by WOCAN through financial mechanism 2. Marketing, communication, advocacy, governance, capacity development – Opportunity for ROI 3. Cost of the project inputs and monitoring
$0.50
$0.12
$0.05
$0.03
Project Development3
W+ Unit Sales4
3rd Party Audit5
Fees 6
4. Sales cost paid to organizations or individuals 5. Cost of third party verification 6. Issuance and registration fees paid to WOCAN
Team and Governing Bodies • WOCAN - A women-led US-registered NGO founded in 2004, with network of > 1000 women and men members in 100 countries • W+ Implementation Team - WOCAN members with expertise in women’s empowerment and resultsbased finance, to provide assistance to Project Developers • W+ Standard Committee: Defines procedures and requirements for methods, units, accreditation of verification entities • W+ Advisory Council: Provides objective input on strategy, marketing and connections to networks
Advisory Council Alyson Slater David Antonioli
Associate, CSR ASIA
Thailand
Chief Executive Officer, Verified Carbon Standard (VCS)
USA
Dr. Eija Pehu Edwin Aalders
Gender Advisor, World Bank
USA
Business Development Manager Climate Change Services, Det Norske Veritas (DNV)
Norway
Ingo Puhl
Project Developer, South Pole Carbon Asset Management
Thailand
Lee West
President, Defensive Portfolio Management (DPM)
USA
Leslie Durshinger
Founder, Managing Director, Terra Global Capital
USA
Liz Allen,
Social Accountant & Auditor, Social Auditors Network (SAN)
UK
Sarah Hobson
Executive Director, New Field Foundation
USA
Sylvia Low
Manager, Corporate Responsibility Asia Pacific, Hilton Worldwide
Singapore
Wangu Mutua
Deputy Program Director, Swedish Cooperative Centre and Vi Agroforestry
Kenya
Kevin Whitfield
Head of Carbon Finance, Nedbank Capital
South Africa
Partners W+ Project Developers: apply methods and drive issuance of units, incl. verification –
Operate using W+ Standard rules and procedures, verification by W+ Standard accredited entities
W+ Unit Intermediaries: build demand, transfer and sale units to buyers – using W+ approved registries
Women Beneficiaries – Eligible beneficiaries, identified in W+ project design document
Beneficiary Payment Aggregator: manage payments to women – Identified by W+ developer, according to W+ rules, validated by accredited verification entities