A TOOLKIT FOR THE DESIGN AND ISSUANCE OF GENDER BONDS IN AFRICAGENDER BONDSPREPARED BY: FSD AfricaFSD Network Gender Collaborative Programme (FSD Network Gender CoPro)British International Investment (BII)Established in 2012 and supported by UK aid, FSD Africa is a specialist development agency working to build and strengthen financial markets across sub-Saharan Africa. It works to reduce poverty through a ‘market systems development’ approach, which means it aims to address the structural, underlying causes of poverty by improving how financial market systems function.FSD Africa believes that investing in building a financial system that is transparent, stable and accessible creates the conditions for a fair and sustainable future, where inequality is reduced and corruption is tackled, and where individuals, businesses and governments alike are able to prepare for future challenges, from climate change to political instability.From FSD Africa’s headquarters in Nairobi, its team of financial sector experts work alongside governments, business leaders, regulators and policy makers to design and build ambitious programmes that make financial markets work better for everyone. Depending on the project, FSD Africa can provide a combination of grants, investment capital, market insights and technical assistance to ensure it achieves its objectives.FSD Africa’s work focuses on where the need is greatest, and where it believes the potential for impact is the most significant. It has a specific mandate to invest in breakthrough, innovative ideas that can have a transformative impact. By sharing risk with its partners, FSD Africa is able to address more dicult, persistent, or higher-risk challenges, in more unstable or fragile geographies, than traditional development finance organisations.The FSD Network Gender Collaborative Programme aims to incorporate gender into the operations of Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) entities in the African region, and strengthen their capacity to produce systemic gender impacts. In addition, it is enhancing the gender knowledge and implementation skills of important market actors, such as service providers and policy makers, in order to sustain systemic change. Together with partners, the programme is striving to remove the policy, regulatory, infrastructure, service delivery and norms-related challenges that impede women from fully benefiting from the expansion of financial access in their respective countries. The FSD Network Gender CoPro is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.The FSD Network is a family of Financial Sector Deepening programmes seeking to build diverse and inclusive financial systems across Africa that enhance financial resilience and sustainable livelihoods for all in order to enable inclusive growth.BII is the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor with a mission to help solve the biggest global development challenges by investing patient, flexible capital to support private sector growth and innovation. BII invests to create more productive, sustainable and inclusive economies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, enabling people in those countries to build better lives for themselves and their communities. Gender and diversity is a key area of focus for BII’s approach to inclusive investing, with a commitment to mobilise more capital to intentionally support women and girls.UN Women is the UN organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality. It works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to ensure that the standards are eectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. It works globally to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on four strategic priorities Women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems; Women have income security, decent work and economic autonomy; All women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence; Women and girls contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and benefit equally from the prevention of natural disasters and conflicts and humanitarian action. UN Women also coordinates and promotes the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality.UN Women Author: Parallelle FinanceParallelle Finance provides research, analysis and data on ESG investing, with a primary focus on gender lens investing. Parallelle publishes in-depth quarterly reports on women in the global economy and gender-focused investments. The Parallelle team has been published and quoted widely in the financial press on diversity-centred