4 March 2019: The World Bank Group’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) issued a sustainable development bond promoting investment in women and girls as a way to reduce poverty and build sustainable societies. The USD 4 million, three-year bond focused on SDG 5 (gender equality) has Impax Asset Management as the sole investor.

The bond was launched on 4 March 2019, in Washington DC, US. The bond is part of the work undertaken by the World Bank with public- and private-sector partners to close gaps between males and females globally as means to tackle poverty and drive sustainable economic growth. The Bank argues that, globally, countries are currently losing USD 160 trillion in wealth because of differences in lifetime earnings between women and men.

“Gender inequality is the great economic issue of our time.”

On the bond launch, Joe Keefe, President of Impax Asset Management LLC, noted that “gender inequality is not only the great human rights issue of our time, but the great economic issue of our time,” adding that eradicating gender inequality and providing full educational and economic opportunities to women and girls has the potential to unleash “the greatest period of economic growth” in history.

Also speaking about the bond, Heike Reichelt, World Bank, observed increased interest in the purpose of finance, with the World Bank’s bonds providing a way for investors to achieve financial goals while supporting a social purpose: mobilizing finance for achieving the SDGs. [World Bank Press Release]