The Singapore-based Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) has issued a $27 million bond to support creating sustainable livelihoods for more than three million women in developing countries.

The bond is called the Women’s Livelihood Bond 3 (WLB3), part of the $150 million WLB series of gender bonds.

Photo: IIX

WLB3 will be backing enterprises in India, Indonesia, Cambodia, and the Philippines that are directly supporting women to respond to or recover from the economic effects of the pandemic.

‘At a time when COVID-19 caused governments, investors, and businesses to turn inward and leave behind millions of underserved women, we took a stand to do what is right,’ said IIX’s CEO and Founder Professor Durreen Shahnaz.

‘We closed a deal of immense proportions during a pandemic and taught the world’s leading institutions how to create a new financial product that works for the 99 per cent. Our astounding success is due to the fact that we dare to do what no one else is doing by valuing women and making them a part of the global financial system. But we’re not stopping there. With each innovative financial instrument, we’re going to keep pushing the boundaries of financial markets so that we create truly systemic change that will outlast any pandemic.’

For more on Women’s Livelihood Bond series, visit the IIX website.