W’Bank Sustainable Devt Bond Raises Awareness for Women, Girls’ Empowerment
The World Bank has issued a Sustainable Development Bond to raise awareness for how empowering women and girls is one of the most effective ways to accelerate economic development, reduce poverty and build sustainable societies around the world. The bond raised CAD1 billion from institutional investors in the Canadian dollar market.
Achieving gender equality is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and one of five key themes under Canada’s 2018 presidency of the Group of Seven (G7). It is central to the World Bank’s goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity in a sustainable manner.
Marking the World Bank’s first return to the Canadian dollar-denominated market in two years, the bond attracted remarkably strong participation from Canadian investors, according to a press release from the Bank issued in Washington, USA.
In addition to offering the year’s first high quality opportunity in this market, the bond’s sustainable development and gender equality focus offered investors an attractive opportunity to align financial and social objectives. The bond was comfortably oversubscribed, with more than 40 investors placing orders for more than CAD1.2 billion.
World Bank Chief Executive Officer, Kristalina Georgieva, said: “We need US$7 trillion to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals - and we will not achieve them if we leave half our population behind. This is why the World Bank and Canada are committed to advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women. It’s not just the right thing to do - it’s the smart thing to do to ensure a better future for all.”
World Bank Vice President and Treasurer, Ms Arunma Oteh, said: “Capital markets can transform society. Through World Bank bonds, we create the channels that raise funding for global priorities such as gender and climate change, and connect investors to positive development outcomes.
“I am particularly delighted that we have been able to build on Canada’s commitment to empowering women and girls, to launch the World Bank’s first sustainable development benchmark bond highlighting gender equality,” Oteh added.
President and CEO of Addenda Capital, Roger Beauchemin, said: “Addenda Capital has determined that the World Bank’s Sustainable Development Bonds are an excellent fit for our clients including our new Addenda Impact Fixed Income Fund. This bond reinforces our view that investors must look beyond green bond labels to identify opportunities for clients to have a positive social and environmental impacts while still generating competitive investment returns.
“With the World Bank’s sustainable development mandate, this bond will help support projects and programmes that cover the key themes Canada has identified as priorities for its 2018 G7 Presidency, including advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment,” he added.
BMO Capital Markets and Bank of America Merrill Lynch were joint lead managers for the bond.
Canada is a founding member of the World Bank. Since 1945, Canada and the World Bank have worked together, with other member governments, to finance projects, design policies, and deliver programmes to end poverty and create a world based on the principles of sustainable development.
Building on the Millennium Development Goals, the Sustain- able Development Goals (SDGs), agreed by 193 world leaders in 2015, are a 17-point plan to end poverty, combat climate change and fight injustice and inequality. Goal 5 deals with: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
The SDGs are a to-do-list for the planet that can be achieved if everyone plays their part. This is clear from the statistics - in low-income countries, one out of every 10 children dies before the age of five, whereas in wealthier nations, this number is only one out of 143.
And the lifetime risk of dying in pregnancy and childbirth is one in 22 in Africa, one in 120 in Asia, and one in 3,800 for a fifteen-year-old girl in developed countries.