UN Women calls for stronger gender-lens investment through gender bonds in Asia and the Pacific
[Press release]
Asia-Pacific Sustainable Finance Lab brings together regulators, stock exchanges, investors and financial institutions to explore how capital markets can accelerate progress on gender equality
Katja Freiwald (left), UN Women’s Regional Lead for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Asia-Pacific, and Natasha Garcha (right), Senior Director and Sustainable Finance and Gender-lens Investing Specialist at IIX, attend the launch of “Mobilizing Capital Markets for Gender Equality: A Call to Action for Corporates to Accelerate Gender Lens Investments Through Gender Bonds” on 5 November 2026. Photo: UN Women/Ploy Phutpheng
BANGKOK, Thailand – UN Women Asia and the Pacific, together with the Impact Investment Exchange (IIX), launched “Mobilizing Capital Markets for Gender Equality: A Call to Action for Corporates to Accelerate Gender Lens Investments Through Gender Bonds”, a position paper calling for greater use of capital markets and corporate investments to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through gender-focused financial instruments, including gender bonds. The paper was launched at the second Asia-Pacific Sustainable Finance Lab (APSFL) Regional Convening in Bangkok.
The position paper calls for corporations to leverage the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) and the Orange Bond Principles as guidance to design bonds and ensure that the use of proceeds aligns with the gender-equality outcomes. It spotlights gender bonds as a means for corporate bond issuers to mobilize and channel capital towards gender equality initiatives within their organizations to build more inclusive, profitable and resilient businesses.
“Gender equality is a powerful predictor of a nation’s climate resilience and human security,” said Natasha Garcha, Senior Director, Sustainable Finance and Gender-lens Investing Specialist at IIX. “Translating that potential into progress requires cooperation and commitment across the ecosystem. This publication sets out concrete pathways to build financial markets that empower women as architects of action, bridge the silos between capital and policy, and demonstrate how corporates can be part of the solution.”
With global equity markets valued at approximately USD $125 trillion and capital markets have significant potential to advance gender equality by influencing corporate priorities, investment decisions and capital allocation.
Yet, despite growing private-sector commitments and investor interest, gender considerations remain insufficiently integrated into disclosure standards, environmental, social and governance frameworks, investment strategies and financial products. For financial institutions, gender-labelled finance presents an important opportunity to translate commitments to gender equality into concrete investment and financing, helping mobilize capital and deliver measurable outcomes for gender equality.
“Gender equality is not a ‘nice to have’ — it is a material investment consideration,” said Katja Freiwald, UN Women’s Regional Lead for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Asia-Pacific. “Capital markets are powerful levers for change, shaping corporate priorities, strengthening accountability and unlocking opportunities that create value for investors and issuers alike. Moving gender equality from the margins to the mainstream of finance requires collective action across the entire financial ecosystem.”
The Asia-Pacific Sustainable Finance Lab, supported by Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), was launched in response to a growing recognition that achieving gender equality requires not only targeted social and economic interventions, but also greater integration of gender considerations into the institutions, standards and financial instruments that shape the allocation of capital.
While gender equality is increasingly relevant to how investors assess governance quality, human capital management, organizational resilience, supply chain sustainability and long-term business value. The Asia-Pacific Sustainable Finance Lab serves as a lens to shed light on these material connections and advance the integration of gender equality into capital-market practices, instruments and decision-making.
The launch of the position paper marks a call for capital-market actors across the region to move from recognizing the importance of gender equality to integrating it into the systems, standards and financial instruments that shape the allocation of capital.
