Key Goals of CfT:

• Increase overall understanding of barriers limiting women’s full economic participation as entrepreneurs.
• Increase women entrepreneurs’ access to financing and markets, including procurement and scaling opportunities.
• Increase the network of partners, allies, and stakeholders advocating for women entrepreneurs.

This collaborative project will address barriers that women entrepreneurs, including Indigenous, newcomer, and other diverse entrepreneurs with intersecting identities, disproportionately face in comparison to men when growing their business, including in growth sectors such as green ∕ clean tech, digital services, agri-food and manufacturing.

What is Systemic Change?

Systemic change refers to changing one or more elements within a system (e.g.: government policy, hiring practices, etc) to ensure women’s full participation in Canada’s economic, social, and political life. At PARO, we are particularly focused on the systemic challenges faced by women entrepreneurs.

Together with our Partners and Collaborators, we:

• Aim to address or remove the root barriers to gender equality in a system (e.g. working with institutions to change their policies and biased practices against women).
• Do not aim to change women to fit or adapt to discriminatory systems (e.g. training women to take part in an institution’s policies and practices that are biased against them).