Justice services are often not designed to meet the needs of women in their daily lives—but changemakers are stepping up with solutions. This International Women’s Day, HiiL and IIX highlight the funding gap and the need to invest in justice innovations that work.
Justice systems often fall short of meeting women’s needs. From navigating complex legal systems to facing discrimination and financial barriers, too many women struggle to access the justice they deserve. But change is happening. Startups and social enterprises are stepping up with innovative solutions—offering legal support, safety tools, and rights-based services tailored to women’s needs. And yet, despite their potential, these initiatives remain critically underfunded.
This International Women’s Day, in partnership with Impact Investment Exchange (IIX), we’re calling for urgent investment in gender justice solutions. In a new policy brief on innovative financing strategies, we highlight the current funding gap and how, with the right investment, we can turn innovation into impact and accelerate action for gender equality.
Global Gender Justice Landscape
The policy brief highlights how justice services are often not designed to meet the needs of women in their daily lives. Data from HiiL’s Justice Needs and Satisfaction (JNS) surveys in over 23 countries reveals that women experience inequality, discrimination, and exclusion throughout their justice journeys.
People-Centred Justice & Innovative Gender Justice Solutions
This is where people-centred justice plays a crucial role—focusing on innovative solutions that are effective, affordable, and sustainable. Justice startups and social enterprises provide services that help women navigate legal challenges and achieve the outcomes they need. Rather than competing with formal justice systems, these solutions complement them by filling critical gaps that governments often struggle to address.
Social entrepreneurs and civil society organisations have launched innovative gender justice solutions, from safety apps to legal aid platforms. In the policy brief, we analyse 60+ initiatives focused on justice problems affecting women in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina.
These solutions are gaining momentum due to the rise of startup hubs across Africa, Asia, and Latin America providing mentorship, funding, and networking opportunities. Increased smartphone access, internet penetration, and advocacy for women’s rights have also fueled demand for legal services. Governments support startups through grants and regulatory reforms, helping expand justice solutions.
Despite their transformative potential, many gender justice startups struggle with scalability and sustainability due to limited funding. A major challenge is the lack of dedicated incubators and accelerators that can help these solutions grow.
Only 15% of investments target structural issues like access to justice, legal empowerment, and gender-based violence prevention.
The Financing Landscape for Gender Justice Solutions
The policy brief highlights Gender Lens Investing (GLI) as a promising way to address the funding gap. GLI integrates gender considerations into financial decision-making, directing capital toward initiatives that empower women and girls.
Although GLI has expanded—growing by over 250% between 2017 and 2021—most funds remain concentrated in healthcare, fintech, and agriculture. Only 15% of investments target structural issues like access to justice, legal empowerment, and gender-based violence prevention.
To close this gap, GLI must evolve beyond business and workforce participation to support solutions that tackle deep-rooted gender inequalities, systemic discrimination, and power imbalances. Innovative financing models—such as IIX’s Women’s Livelihood BondTM Series and Orange BondsTM, which has mobilised over US$402 million to support 2.6 million women and girls worldwide—demonstrate how targeted capital can create a scalable impact in gender justice.
Orange BondsTM and social impact bonds provide new ways to support these overlooked gender justice initiatives. The Orange MovementTM is helping to close financing gaps by promoting transparency, mobilising capital, and enabling measurable gender justice outcomes. It aims to mobilise US$10 billion by 2030 to empower 100 million women, girls, and gender minorities. It focuses on long-term change rather than temporary solutions, helping gender justice startups scale and thrive.
One of these startups is Gwiji for Women, an online platform that allows domestic workers to escape exploitation and unfair treatment by connecting them to safe, fairly paid jobs while also educating them on their legal rights. Many domestic workers face wage theft, abuse, and lack of contracts—Gwiji provides them with dignified work, financial stability, and knowledge to assert their rights.
Voice IT & Herfessions are two innovative Nigerian platforms that allow survivors of gender-based violence to report crimes anonymously, connect with peers, and access legal aid and psychological support.
The way forward
The need for gender justice is urgent, yet many solutions lack funding. HiiL’s surveys show that justice providers overlook women’s needs, and traditional GLI has done little to close this gap. The Orange Movement is helping change this by linking gender justice enterprises with investors, increasing transparency, and using impact-driven financing like Orange Bonds to drive long-term systemic change.
To scale gender justice solutions, we recommend:
✅ Investing in reliable, people-centred, gender-disaggregated data to better understand and meet women’s justice needs.
✅ Adopting impact metrics that measure and report gender justice outcomes beyond financial returns.
✅ Building the capacity of gender justice enterprises through business development training and financial literacy support.
✅ Developing gender justice accelerator programmes within Judiciaries and Ministries to provide funding, mentorship, and regulatory support.
✅ Creating knowledge-sharing platforms to strengthen collaboration and scale impact.
✅ Engaging investors and financial institutions to expand GLI beyond traditional sectors and into systemic gender justice solutions.
With the rule of law and gender equality under assault across many parts of the globe, investing in gender justice solutions is more urgent than ever. This requires bold, long-term investments that can unlock the potential of justice startups, scale impactful solutions, and ensure that women everywhere have access to the justice they deserve.
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