Walmart announced it will spend billions of dollars over the next five years to train female workers around the world and support women-owned businesses.

Photo: www.washingtonpost.com

The store chain committed to contribute $100 million in grants to non-profit groups focused on developing job skills for low-income women in the United States. Women that work on the overseas farms and factories that Walmart  collaborates with will also receive the support.

According to Walmart, it will also spend $20 billion over the next five years to buy goods from the nation’s women-owned businesses double its current amount.

The program is one more chance for the world’s largest retailer to improve its social image, says the Washington Post.

“We have looked kind of systematically in the places our business can make a difference, that will make us a stronger business and will also help our customers and our communities,” said Leslie Dach, head of corporate affairs at Walmart. “This is clearly right there in that sweet spot.”

Walmart has been criticized for its treatment of women. Every week almost 200 million customers shop at Walmart and most of them are female. More than half of its 2 million employees are women as well. In the last years, it was involved in a massive sex-discrimination lawsuit that accused the company of paying women less than men and passed them over for promotions. This summer, the the case was blocked receiving class-action status, and attorneys for the women involved said they plan to file individual complaints. However, Dach said that Wednesday’s initiative has been in the works for about a year and is not related to the suit.

Walmart has been working on improving its image launching projects in different areas. Earlier this year Walmart collaborated with first lady Michelle Obama on a program to reduce sodium and sugar in the food it sells. A few months later it revealed a plan to open hundreds of stores in urban areas, where labor unions and other groups have long opposed its entry.

For the the current initiative, Walmart  teamed up with Melanne Verveer, U.S. ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues and former chief of staff for Hillary Rodham Clinton when she was first lady. In a statement, she called the retailer’s move a “bold step forward.”

The program will also require suppliers with more than $1 billion in sales to increase the percentage of women and minorities on their Walmart accounts.