Happy International Women’s Day from APF Canada

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 stands 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 in Asia through our Women-only Business Mission Series.

We are thankful to the Government of Canada for supporting this important work and for the new funding announced today by The Hon. Mary Ng, Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business and Economic Development, 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. The funding announced today under round 2 of the WES Ecosystem Fund will support the Foundation in increasing women-only business missions to Southeast 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 #embraceequity through your social media channels and to visit internationalwomensday.com to learn more about this important day of celebration and support for women.