FAQs: UN Women Sustainable Finance Programme

Sustainable finance refers to financial activities that incorporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into investment and financing decisions. It aims to support long-term, sustainable economic development by directing capital towards activities that benefit people, economies, and the environment, in alignment with the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Social considerations include issues such as equality, inclusion, and human rights, within which gender equality plays a critical role.

Gender equality is both a development priority and an economic imperative. Financial systems that do not account for gender dynamics risk misallocating capital, overlooking market opportunities and limiting inclusive growth, and reinforcing existing inequalities.

Integrating gender considerations improves investment effectiveness, strengthens economic participation, and contributes to broader sustainable development outcomes.

Gender lens investing is an investment approach that considers gender-based factors across the investment process in order to advance gender equality and inform better decision-making. While definitions vary, it is widely understood as a strategy that integrates gender considerations into how capital is allocated, managed, and assessed.

Gender impact investing is a subset of gender lens investing that focuses on the intentional allocation of capital to achieve measurable outcomes for women and girls.

This may include investments that:

• expand access to education, healthcare, and financial services
• support women-led businesses and employment opportunities
• promote leadership and decision-making participation
• address systemic issues such as gender-based violence

Gender-responsive finance refers to financial strategies, instruments, and policies that intentionally address gender gaps.

This includes:

• Creating the policy and regulatory conditions that channel capital towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG5) priorities.
• Promoting financing sectors, programmes, or initiatives that intentionally seek to reduce gender gaps (or that have gender equality as a primary or main objective).

A gender bond is a type of sustainable bond used to credibly access financing for projects, programmes, and strategies that advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, including contributing to the achievement of SDG 5.

These bonds enable issuers—such as governments, development banks, and private entities—to channel capital towards initiatives that address gender gaps across areas such as employment, access to services, economic participation, and leadership. They typically align with broader social or sustainability bond frameworks, while applying specific gender-related eligibility criteria, impact metrics, and reporting approaches.

In practice, the SFP works to integrate gender equality into the functioning of financial systems by strengthening the frameworks, partnerships, and tools that guide how capital is allocated. It supports the development and application of gender-responsive financial instruments—such as gender bonds—while contributing to global standards, taxonomies, and guidance that embed gender considerations into sustainable finance markets.

The SFP delivers this through a combination of system-level interventions and targeted support, including:

• Developing frameworks and guidance that integrate gender into sustainable finance standards and taxonomies.
• Supporting financial institutions in designing and issuing gender-responsive instruments.
• Providing technical assistance and capacity-building to translate commitments into implementation.
• Convening stakeholders across public and private sectors to align approaches and share knowledge.

Through this approach, the SFP helps ensure that financial flows more effectively contribute to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment at scale.

The programme collaborates with a broad range of stakeholders, including:

• public development banks and development finance institutions
• private financial institutions and investors
• governments and regulators
• global standard-setting bodies
• civil society and research organizations

This multi-stakeholder approach helps align market practices and accelerate adoption.

The SFP is distinct in that it starts with a clear end goal advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment. From there, it works backwards to integrate these objectives into financial systems. Rather than treating gender as a secondary ESG consideration, it positions gender equality as a core factor shaping how capital is allocated and how markets function.

It operates at both:

• Market level: instruments, standards, and investor practices
• System level: policy frameworks, taxonomies, and institutional alignment

Gender bonds fall within the broader category of social or sustainability bonds but are distinguished by their explicit focus on gender outcomes. They apply targeted criteria, indicators, and reporting frameworks to ensure that financed activities contribute to reducing gender gaps and advancing women’s empowerment.

The SFP supports the development and scaling of gender bond markets by:

• Developing guidance and practical toolkits (for example, supporting issuers in markets such as Côte d’Ivoire to structure gender bonds aligned with global standards).
• Aligning market approaches with global standards (for example, collaboration with international frameworks applied across markets in Europe and Asia).
• Building capacity among issuers, investors, and regulators (for example, technical support to financial institutions in countries such as Tanzania and Colombia).
• Strengthening market transparency and credibility (for example, supporting reporting and impact frameworks used by issuers across emerging markets, including Latin America and Africa).

In addition, the SFP builds and consolidates evidence on market trends to demonstrate how gender bonds function in practice and to inform future growth. This includes documenting case studies such as gender bond issuances in Tanzania, where strong investor demand led to significant oversubscription, and in West Africa, where issuances have expanded access to finance for women-led businesses and strengthened local enterprise ecosystems. Similar examples from Latin America, including sovereign and institutional issuances, show how gender bonds can be integrated into national financing strategies.

By combining technical support with evidence generation, the SFP helps translate market activity into actionable insights, strengthening confidence among issuers and investors and supporting the continued expansion of gender bond markets.

The SFP focuses on system-level impact, including:

• adoption of gender-responsive standards and frameworks
• growth in gender-focused financial instruments
• integration of gender into institutional strategies
• evidence of capital reaching the real economy

Evidence shows increasing investor interest, growth in gender bond issuance, and expanded institutional commitments. These trends indicate that gender-responsive finance is evolving into a credible and scalable component of sustainable finance markets.

It refers to tangible outcomes resulting from financial flows, such as:

• increased access to finance for women and their businesses
• job creation and improved working conditions
• expanded access to essential services and infrastructure
• strengthened local economic participation

The SFP works with international standard-setting bodies to integrate gender considerations into:

• social bond guidance
• sustainable finance taxonomies
• impact measurement and reporting frameworks
• sustainability disclosure standards

This helps ensure consistency, credibility, and comparability across markets.

These are classification systems that define which economic activities qualify as sustainable, incorporating criteria that ensure gender equality is explicitly addressed in investment decisions. They help guide capital allocation and reduce ambiguity in sustainable finance markets.

Key challenges include:

• limited availability of gender-disaggregated data
• perception of gender as a niche or non-financial issue
• lack of standardized definitions and metrics
• misalignment between financial incentives and social outcomes

Yes, but scalability depends on:

• stronger standardization and frameworks
• improved data availability
• increased investor demand
• alignment between policy, regulation, and market practice

The SFP works to strengthen these enabling conditions.

The next phase focuses on:

• scaling implementation of gender-responsive finance
• deepening integration into financial systems
• strengthening partnerships with financial institutions and their networks
• expanding global adoption of standards and tools

Success would mean that gender considerations are:

• systematically integrated into financial decision-making
• reflected in mainstream financial instruments
• embedded in global standards and policies
• recognized as a core component of sustainable finance

Stakeholders can engage by:

• applying SFP tools, frameworks, and guidance
• partnering on initiatives and pilot programmes
• contributing to knowledge development
• participating in events and dialogue platforms
• unlocking more financing for gender equality