By Adedapo Adesanya
As alternative assets begin to gain ground, FSD Africa has announced plans to help financial market stakeholders raise green and gender-based bonds over the next year to support sustainability projects across the continent.
Speaking during an interview with Business Post on the sidelines of a meeting with stakeholders on Wednesday, Dr Evans Osano, the director for capital markets at FSD Africa, said, “We want to scale up the work we have been doing supporting green and gender bonds.”
He said the company’s primary focus is the mobilisation of different financial instruments that will help reach Africa’s goals as the continent is behind when it comes to investments aimed at tackling challenges relating to sustainability.
The African continent receives about $30 billion for climate finance annually compared to the $277 billion required to overcome the challenges each year.
He noted that the organisation hoped to raise $1 billion to be deployed to green and gender-based investments, including carbon credit, bio-diversity, women-based businesses, and infrastructure projects in Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania, and Mauritius.
FSD will provide technical assistance in product development, capacity building, and market infrastructure to bond issuers that it is partnering with to meet these targets.
Speaking on gender bonds, Dr Osano said, “Women account for 51 per cent of the Nigerian population, and many of them are disadvantaged, so we have to double up the efforts. And they are in sectors that are very critical, but they are not getting the right support to be able to realise their full potential.”
It has already started issuing gender bonds in Morocco and Tanzania but has not caught on in other African countries, including Nigeria.
Dr Osano said, “These asset classes are new, and even globally, only over $2 billion has been raised. We are very committed to working with different partners to increase the numbers and issuers. I do hope that in Nigeria, in the next year, we will see one or two gender transactions.”
Dipo Olowookere