Knowledge SeriesUpcoming

Building for Impact: Resilience and Growth for Women-Led Care Businesses

Tuesday, 15 September 2026

9:00 -10:00 am ET 

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Women entrepreneurs are redefining the care economy by pioneering essential services that address the growing global demand for child, elderly, and disability care. The economic potential is immense: targeted investments in the care economy could generate up to 299 million jobs globally by 2035. Yet scaling these businesses sustainably requires more than financing—it demands strong operational foundations, quality service delivery, and enabling regulatory environments. In many markets, formal standards and support systems remain absent or nascent, leaving care businesses to navigate complex risks largely on their own. This webinar explores what it takes to build care businesses that are not only financially viable, but also resilient, trusted, and positioned for long-term growth and impact.

Drawing on operational experience and emerging knowledge, this session will examine how to strengthen business models in the care sector (covering quality assurance, risk management, and more) as well as the role of financial intermediaries in supporting WSMEs. It will also feature the presentation of a new knowledge product on safeguarding frameworks as a practical tool for care economy businesses followed by a discussion on how these standards can be enablers of growth and trust, and implications for donors, IPs, and policymakers working to scale the sector.

Speakers

Invest in Childcare Initiative, World Bank

Frances Mary Beaton-Day

Frances Beaton-Day has been working with the World Bank’s Early Learning Partnership (ELP) team since 2016. She is the co-Team Lead for the Invest in Childcare initiative, which supports World Bank country teams and governments to make more and better-quality investments in childcare, and the co-author of the World Bank flagship report on childcare, Better Jobs and Brighter Futures: Investing in Childcare to Build Human Capital. Fran has supported the design and implementation of childcare and early learning programs in Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, India and Bhutan and provides ongoing technical assistance to a range of country teams implementing childcare activities. Prior to joining the ELP team, Fran worked on education programs and public private partnerships at Save the Children Australia and Ark. She started her career as a management consultant, spending four years at the Boston Consulting Group in London before moving into the international development sector.
International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

Martha Melesse

Martha Melesse is a Senior Program Specialist at Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) where her work focuses on policies and innovations that promote inclusive and sustainable economies. She oversees action research aimed at catalyzing transformative change to advance gender equality in the world of work. As a research scientist with over 20 years of experience, she has developed and led IDRC’s work on youth employment, women’s economic empowerment, and care economy, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. She leads the Scaling Care Innovations in Africa flagship initiative. She holds a Ph.D. in public policy from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.
Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative

Wendy Teleki

Wendy Teleki is the Head of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) Secretariat, which is housed in the World Bank and supports women entrepreneurs in over 60 developing countries around the world. We-Fi works with multilateral development banks and local institutions to increase women entrepreneurs access to finance, markets, skills and technology through investments, technical assistance and policy reforms. It has allocated over $360 million and helped catalyze $3.6 billion in financing for women entrepreneurs since its creation in 2017.

Prior to joining We-Fi in 2019, Ms. Teleki worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. At the IFC, Ms. Teleki spearheaded efforts to help private and public institutions in emerging markets expand financing and support for small businesses and women entrepreneurs. Ms. Teleki led programs to privatize and build the small business sector in Ukraine in the early 1990s, developed solutions for SMEs in Indonesia during the Asian Financial Crisis, launched innovative SME finance and advisory offerings, and pioneered blended finance efforts.

In 2022, Ms. Teleki was named one of Forbes’s “50 Over 50” women in finance for her leadership in advocating for women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship. She is the co-author of Rebalance: How Women Lead, Parent, Partner and Thrive and has written on SME finance, entrepreneurship, and gender equality. Ms. Teleki is also a sought-after speaker at high-level events, where she shares her insights and experiences to inspire action towards gender equality and economic empowerment for women in developing countries.

Ms. Teleki holds an MA in International Economics from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business.

9:00 – 9:05AM   Welcoming Remarks by We-Fi

9:05 – 9:10AM  Opening Remarks

9:10 – 9:20AM   Presentation

  • Frances Mary Beaton-Day, Technical Co-Lead, Invest in Childcare Initiative, World Bank 

9:20 – 9:30AM   Presentation

  • Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)

9:30 – 9:40AM  Presentation

  • Martha Melesse, Senior Program Specialist, International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

9:40 – 9:50 AM   Discussion with We-Fi’s Implementing Partners

9:50 – 10:00 AM   Q&A

 

📖 Addressing Care to Accelerate Equality. World Bank Group Gender Thematic Policy Notes Series. © World Bank.

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