The Luxembourg Stock Exchange on Friday said it has stepped up its efforts to advance gender equality in finance by cooperating with UN Women, the United Nations entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women.
The cooperation was announced during a signing ceremony at the exchange in the presence of HRH Grand Duchess Maria Teresa of Luxembourg, Luxembourg minister of finance Yuriko Backes and Luxembourg minister of the economy and development, Cooperation and Humanitarian Affairs Franz Fayot.
LuxSE and UN Women signed an agreement to cooperate to advance sustainable debt for gender equality and promote gender lens investing. The overarching goal of these efforts is to mobilise capital flows to meaningfully contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, and in particular to SDG 5, “Achieve Gender Equality and Empower all Women and Girls.”
Access to financing
“In many parts of the world, women are still excluded from economic activities and financial services,” said Julie Becker, the CEO of LuxSE. “If we want to reduce the gender gap in the global economy, we need to make sure women have access to education, opportunities and financing. This is why gender finance and gender lens investing are so important.”
LuxSE and UN Women will work together to promote sustainable debt instruments which raise financing for projects advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment across the world. Guidelines issued by UN Women, the International Capital Market Association and the International Finance Corporation in November 2021serve as a framework for these efforts.
LuxSE commits to fostering awareness of gender-focused bonds in Luxembourg and beyond, especially among issuers of sustainable securities and impact-conscious investors, with the objective of becoming the reference exchange for gender-focused bonds. “UN Women and LuxSE are committed to making this collaboration a turning point in the way gender equality and women’s empowerment is financed globally,” the exchange said.