The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for international economic cooperation. It brings together 19 countries and two regional unions, representing around 85% of global GDP, 75% of global trade and two-thirds of the world’s population and was hosted this year by South Africa. The 2025 G20 Leaders Declaration, released on November 22, 2025, echoes several key calls to action from the year’s Women20 (W20) reinforcing an important message that women’s entrepreneurship is a powerful driver of economic growth.
This year, Dr. Tania Saba, BMO Chair in Diversity and Governance at Université de Montréal led the Canadian delegation to the W20 South Africa Summit in Johannesburg from October 12 to 14, 2025. The delegation to South Africa also included Tamara Thermitus, Distinguished Boulton Senior Fellow, McGill University (2023-2025). We are delighted to see the impact of this sustained effort, as well as strong bilateral work with individual countries, reflected in the recently released G20 Leader’s Declaration to which Canada is a signatory.
“Once again, women’s entrepreneurship remains firmly on the global economic development G20 agenda. This year, G20 leaders go further in their support for women’s entrepreneurship than ever before. The 2025 G20 Leaders’ Declaration explicitly supports reforms to give women full and equal access to finance and markets, to strengthen women-led businesses and cooperatives and, for the first time, directly links these actions to increased investment in the care economy. The Declaration also encourages continued engagement with We-Fi, reflecting growing acknowledgement of its role in expanding access to capital for women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises around the world, particularly through stronger recognition of We-Fi.” said Saba. We-Fi is the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, hosted by the World Bank, and a collaborative partnership among 14 governments, eight multilateral development banks (MDBs) supporting women entrepreneurs to build businesses, create jobs and strengthen their communities.
Many W20 priorities are clearly reflected in the final text. Leaders commit to reducing the gender labour-force participation gap by 25% by 2030, and the unadjusted wage gap by 15% by 2035. They also pledge to “significantly increase investment and social protection in the care economy,” and promise reforms to ensure women have “full and equal access and rights to economic resources, access to finance and markets to support women’s entrepreneurship and women-led businesses and cooperatives.”
Tamara Thermitus participated in the South African meetings and stressed the evidence that the work of the W20 has an impact. “Research shows that of 220 W20 recommendations made between 2015 and 2024, 74 have been reflected in G20 declarations. It is clear, W20’s voice matters and that Canada’s contributions are making an impact on the global economy.”
Thermitus, a lawyer and critical race scholar who led the team that negotiated the Residential Schools settlement and the Truth and Reconciliation agreement also noted that the term “intersectionality” doesn’t appear explicitly in the W20 South Africa 2025 communiqué, but some intersectional analysis is embedded. “By referencing Ubuntu philosophy and identifying “cross-cutting areas” and showing how entrepreneurship, care economy, climate justice, health equity and violence prevention are interdependent, the Communiqué promotes an approach which explicitly focuses on disaggregation frameworks by calling for data ‘disaggregated by sex, race, education, age, and disability’ and recognizing multiple, overlapping identities. It also recognizes compounded vulnerabilities, including digital inclusion for rural and underserved women and girls, and in STEM education, focusing on the reality of women and girls from marginalised communities. There is still more to be done. In particular, we know that Indigenous women, racialized women, Black women and other diverse women face compounded barriers that should be recognized to achieve substantive equality.”
WEKH’s Co-Chair and founder, Wendy Cukier, who has been a part of the W20 delegation for nearly three years, added: “We-Fi’s ‘Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code’ is a game changer. Modelled on the UK Investing in Women Code, it is a commitment by financial service providers, regulators, development banks and other financial ecosystem players to work together to increase funding provided to women-led micro, small and medium enterprises (WMSMEs) around the world, so that they can grow and add value to the economy and their communities. Among its key provisions is transparency regarding investments in women. Officially launched in October 2023 at the World Bank-IMF Annual Meetings in Marrakech, the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Code is being piloted in 26 countries across the world. These commitments closely align with WEKH recommendations in the State of Women Entrepreneurship (SOWE) Report, including the requirement that financial institutions, venture capitalists and angel investors disclose the proportion of funds that go to women.
The code participants commit to:
- Leadership: Designating a member of their senior management team to champion the organizations’ efforts to support women-led businesses
- Action: Expanding and introducing new measures that will support women entrepreneurs
- Data: Monitoring and reporting annually a commonly agreed set of indicators on the level of financing provided to WMSMEs or supporting others’ efforts to do so
For the past five years, WEKH has highlighted the need for greater transparency in financing, noting that what gets measured gets done. However, consultations reveal persistent regulatory barriers that prevent many financial institutions, investors and venture capital firms from disclosing demographic data about their clients. WEKH hopes that the renewed attention to women’s entrepreneurship at the G20 level will help accelerate progress toward an equitable and inclusive entrepreneurship ecosystem in Canada.
About
Group of Twenty (G20)
The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for international economic cooperation. It brings together 19 countries and two regional unions, representing around 85% of global GDP, 75% of global trade, and two-thirds of the world’s population. G20 members include Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union. The G20 convenes annually to coordinate global economic policy, promote financial stability, and address shared challenges such as climate change, development, trade, health, and, more recently, gender equality. The Leaders’ Summit produces a Leaders’ Declaration, which sets out collective commitments agreed upon by all heads of state.
Women20 (W20)
The Women20 (W20) is the official G20 engagement group dedicated to advancing gender equality and women’s economic empowerment. Established in 2015 during the Turkish G20 Presidency (not 2014), W20 brings together representatives from civil society, academia, business, and international organizations to develop evidence-based policy recommendations for G20 leaders. Each year, W20 negotiates and releases a Communiqué outlining concrete actions needed to increase women’s economic participation, leadership, and well-being. These recommendations address thematic areas such as women’s entrepreneurship, digital inclusion, STEM, the care economy, health equity, climate justice, and violence against women and girls.
The 2025 W20 Summit in South Africa marked W20’s 10th anniversary and the first time a G20 engagement group has convened on African soil, reflecting a growing global commitment to inclusive economic development and the leadership of African women in shaping global gender policy.
Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi)
We-Fi’s founding financial contributors are: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States. These governments have committed $354 million to date.
