WASHINGTON, D.C., November 5, 2019—The World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD, Aaa/AAA) issued a Sustainable Development Bond while continuing to raise awareness for the importance of investing in women and girls to accelerate economic development, reduce poverty and build sustainable societies to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 5: Gender Equality. Treehouse Investments LLC was the sole investor in the US$5 million, five-year callable bond.
Women and girls have a unique role to play as powerful agents of economic growth, stability, and sustainability. Despite progress over the past twenty years narrowing the divide between genders, especially in primary education and health, critical gaps remain. Globally, countries are losing $160 trillion in wealth due to disparities in lifetime earnings between women and men.
World Bank bonds support the financing of sustainable development projects and programs across a range of critical development sectors in member countries. This includes projects designed to close the gender gap in education and health, remove constraints for more and better jobs, eliminate barriers to women’s ownership and control of assets, and enable women’s voice and agency.
Heike Reichelt, World Bank Head of Investor Relations and New Products said: “We value opportunities to engage with investors that buy World Bank bonds to communicate specific development challenges that World Bank projects support and, in this case, shine the light on the World Bank’s role in working with governments to address gender disparities that reduce a country’s ability to grow and prosper.”
Raoul G. Slavin Juliá, Director, Treehouse Investments LLC said: “Women’s empowerment is an exceptionally powerful engine of economic growth, and the most cost-effective means of combating climate change. It is also an idea that is right, fair, easy to quantify and whose time has come. We are pleased to participate in this issuance.”
About the World Bank
The World Bank is an international organization created in 1944 and the original member of the World Bank Group. It operates as a global development cooperative owned by 189 nations. The World Bank has two main goals: to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity. It seeks to achieve these goals primarily by providing loans, risk management products, and expertise on development-related disciplines to its borrowing member government clients in middle-income countries and other creditworthy countries, and by coordinating responses to regional and global challenges. It has been issuing sustainable development bonds in the international capital markets for 70 years to fund its activities that achieve a positive impact.
Disclaimers
The net proceeds from the sale of the bonds described herein are used by the World Bank to finance sustainable development projects and programs in the World Bank’s member countries without being committed or earmarked for lending to, or financing of, any particular projects or programs. Returns on the bonds are not linked to the performance of any particular project or program.
This press release is not an offer for sale of securities of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development ("IBRD"), also known in the capital markets as "World Bank". Any offering of World Bank securities will take place solely on the basis of the relevant offering documentation including, but not limited to, the prospectus, term sheet and/or final terms, as applicable, prepared by the World Bank or on behalf of the World Bank, and is subject to restrictions under the laws of several countries. World Bank securities may not be offered or sold except in compliance with all such laws.
Contact
Heike Reichelt
Head of Investor Relations and New Products
The World Bank
+1 202 477 2880
debtsecurities@worldbank.org
