The Problem:
With less than a decade to address critically climate change and the other UN SDGs, the pressure is on to find innovative and inclusive solutions. The pre-COVID US$2-3 trillion annual SDG financing gap in developing economies has increased to an estimated $4-5 trillion per year. Given this financing gap, the global financial system is positioned to play an integral and increasingly important role in addressing the gap. However, much of the architecture of the global financial system was built without designing for the unique needs of developing economies, designing for environmental responsibility, gender equality, or equality more broadly.
The Opportunities:
The Environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) movement has promoted rebuilding the financial system to consider these risks better, but even deeper integration of these considerations is fundamental for post-COVID recovery and deceleration of climate change. And both of these battles are fundamentally intertwined with gender equality:
Building ‘Forward’ Better: The COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing conflicts worldwide, and the climate crisis have jointly exacerbated the regressive effects on gender inequality – as a result, the eradication of the global gender pay gap is now set back by over a century. Women were almost twice as likely to lose their livelihoods during the pandemic, due to various factors such as disproportionate childcare burdens to labor market asymmetries. Building forward better underscores an opportunity to redress these failures and re-structure economies that better integrate and empower women. Closing the gender-regressive gap in the workforce could add up to US$13 trillion to global GDP by 2030. In light of this substantial economic impact, gender equality must be central to post-COVID recovery.
In her own words, the founder of Impact Investment Exchange tells us why climate change and feminism come hand in hand.
I stared at the painting. I squinted my eyes, and tilted my head, but could not figure out why the painting did not look right. I like to think of myself as a painter, but when I try to take flavours from my favorite feminist painter, Frida, I struggle.
Frida could effortlessly blend with oil, her political views, agony, and love as spirited attempts to express her own reality. I chewed on the end of my paintbrush, wondering how she did so time and again. The answer stared back at me from in between the interplay of green and blue textures.
SHE IS MORE is officially open for youths looking to channel their resilience through art. The theme, Resilience, will shine a light on and celebrate untold stories of human resilience across the world.
Singapore, 15 April 2022 – IIX Foundation is back with its annual flagship program, SHE IS MORE 2022, to celebrate women and youth through art. This global art competition invites young artists across the world to share their voices through personal pieces of visual art that celebrate the value of inclusivity. The theme of Resilience pays homage to the women who are standing tall in a society with great gender disparities.
Business Insider, in partnership with Bank of America, is launching the Financing a Sustainable Future editorial series to help business leaders and their stakeholders — including employees, customers, shareholders, and board members — understand the opportunities and uncertainties that come with this secular change to the capital markets. READ MORE
IIX Closes US$8 Million Women’s Livelihood Bond™—the World’s First Listed Social Sustainability Bond
July 6, 2017— SINGAPORE— IIX (Impact Investment Exchange), a pioneer in impact investing and catalyst to social innovation, has closed the world’s first social sustainability bond to be listed on a stock exchange, the Women’s Livelihood Bond (WLB)™. This innovative US$8 million bond is the first in a series of IIX Social Sustainability Bonds™ and is projected to empower over 385,000 women across Southeast Asia through increased credit access, market linkages, and affordable goods and services.