 Hi, good morning everyone and welcome to our fireside chat on the orange bonds a new asset class for investing in gender equality My name is George stop Chinsky, and I'll be the moderator for today So we'll just run straight in So the agenda for today So first we'll have some introductions from our panelists from the steering committee and then later on they'll go through the Orange one initiative overview giving you some more details about the initiative in general and then we'll open to a panelist discussion and Q&A session at the end if you use the Q&A function on the event on the app That allows you to put your questions on there, and I'll I'll take them from there later on and So now I'll move to the panelists for today and introduced our speakers So from IAX we have miss Natasha Garcha the senior director of the innovative finance team Miss Garcha leads the IAX's work in their award-winning women's livelihood bond series But also as a representative on the steering committee of the orange bond initiative Miss Garcha's been at IAX for a number of years. We're heading their work in these areas But also she was the co-head of corporate social responsibility at D.E. Shaw previously So Miss Garcha I'll pass that over to you to introduce IAX and yourself Sure, thank you very much George, and thank you to everyone who joined the session We're living in a world in which women are disproportionately impacted by a number of crises Climate change Covid we were twice as likely to drop out of the workforce and in all the wars that we're seeing everywhere from from Syria and Palestine to the Ukraine women are rarely the main Combatants, but they're usually the main victims yet We still firmly believe that women can be solutions to many of these issues having women back in the workforce Can add 13 trillion dollars back to GDP having women have a seat at peace tables allows peace agreements a 35% increased chance of lasting for at least 15 years and the climate crisis cannot be solved without half of humanity being a part of the Solution and so for those reasons IAX which is a woman-led firm Has been working for many years in the impact investing space to bridge the wall streets of the world with the back streets Of the world has had a very clear mission to have gender and women women as a part of the equation in financial solutions We're very excited to be here launching the orange bond initiative IAX has issued many gender bonds in the past, but having a very clear asset class of what a gender bond even means We hope is a pathway to unlock Billions of dollars towards this new asset class We're also very excited that everyone on the steering committee is a practitioner all of us and you hear from my wonderful colleagues Who are also in the steering committee from the DFC and Naveen have actually worked on transactions before so we're not just looking to set Standards where people who've worked to mobilize capital. We understand the complexities and we're looking to bring that knowledge Into this asset class. Thank you very much for joining us today, and I'll hand it back to George Thank You Miss Garger and so now I'll pass it over to Mr. Stephen liberal who is managing director and head of ESG and Impact at the global fixed income team at Naveen Mr. Liberal is also the lead portfolio manager for the fixed income team within their strategies to incorporate ESG Mr. Liberal is also a member of the investment committee and holds a CFA qualification And has also sat on the advisory board for the screen bomb principles. So, Mr. Liberal I'll pass it over to you Thank you. Thank you again for having me and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss this really Important and emerging topic for us one of the things that we have found As we continue to grow our assets and grow our business is that our investors are really looking for a use of proceeds Concept that can be applied in a variety of different ways that there is a desire for ever more granularity in the impact that we deliver to them and so that this Opportunity and I've been fortunate enough to have worked with IAX on three of the four women's livelihood bond series deals that have come to market so far and What we have found has been tremendous reception from our investors the the for a couple of different reasons one You know, we talk a lot in the market now about being able to deliver impact And what that means is obviously different for everyone But what everyone is looking for is some type of way to align their principles with their investment holdings and The concept of a gender equity bond has been really interesting and very exciting to many of our investors and What we're hopefully able to do in in trying to establish this particular Initiative is do the same thing that we did for the green bonds for green bonds through the green bond principles And what we want is to be able to engage with issuers To get them comfortable with what needs to be done from a perspective of what an investor is looking for and have them Feel comfortable that what they're going to do is it be is going to be accepted in the market and going to be considered as Cutting edge and relevant for whatever outcome they're attempting to to provide an investment vehicle for So hopefully what we do with these principles and this initiative is Create an ecosystem in an environment that allows for issuers to come to market and investors to be able to find particular Securities that really fit what their investors are looking for Thank you very much, mr. Liberal and now I'll pass it over to mr. Richard Greenberg who's managing director at the United States International Development Finance Corporation He leads the efforts and DFC's contribution to the expansion of social enterprises and the group He leads has closed over 1 billion US dollars in financing enterprises and funds across a variety of sectors So mr. Greenberg I'll pass it over to you to introduce. Thank you George It's great to be here and I want to thank ix for organizing this panel They've been an incredible partner for us as a leader in enabling us to contribute to this space So there's some history there and some transactions that we've already done I just want to make sure everybody who's in the room who may not be familiar that DFC is used to be OPIC OPIC and we are the US Development Finance Institution. We provide financing Debt now we have equity authority. We can provide technical assistance now under our new Formulation as DFC which is very exciting and we we've always I think for many years We've actually been trying to contribute to Gender Lens investing and we have some people who really been standout leaders in that space One of my colleagues Eleanor Kempelman actually is on the steering committee of this group She couldn't be here today. So I'm kind of standing in to a certain extent for her Also, I just want to introduce. I have a two colleagues here Laura Anderson Do you want to just raise your hand Laura and Jason Whitney? To to the colleagues in my team are also here and available to speak to any of you I Guess the only other thing I would add here is that I manage a team it's called the social enterprise finance team and what we're trying to do is Represent the part of the portfolio at DFC which looks for more innovative transactions earlier stage Uses of our capital that may not be traditional and conventional in terms of risk return and impact and we've set some sort of higher bar standards for ourselves in Looking at transactions with respect to impact that that the agency is very lined with with the agency's mission that could be small direct deals or Small funds and also initiatives like this where we have provided either guarantee or funding To enable to catalyze more capital because at the end of the day That's really what we're all about bringing in new being and it's in its clients to this space. Thanks. Thank you Thank you, Mr. Greenberg and thank you all for being here today and for representing organizations on the steering committee of the initiative So now I'll pass it over to miss culture who will tell you a little bit more about the initiative in general and its mission and objectives It's the orange bond firstly why orange we get to ask this question a lot So the United Nations has 17 sustainable development goals as everyone here likely knows The fifth goal is orange in color and it stands for gender equality therefore the inspiration for the orange bond In fact on the steering committee besides the DFC in the vein all who've been perfect Thank you all who've been at the forefront of actually working on transactions I think this is one of the unique things about the steering committee is that we understand the complexities of this because it's easy to set Standards but you need to have both the gender expertise and the expertise on the financial side to set something that can actually mobilize capital at scale But it's very important as a class the mission is to mobilize at least ten billion dollars by 2030 through the orange bond transactions and we think that's achievable and you'll hear from Steven the sustainable debt market already crossed the $1 trillion mark and so we we think gender can be a cross-cutting part of that We also define gender to be very inclusive. We're looking at women girls the LGBTQ plus community this intersectionality is Absolutely critical when you think about the different ways an individual can face gender-based discrimination So besides having a set of principles We will also be pushing our transaction support and working to develop the ecosystem Which you'll hear more from from Richard on later in the presentation besides The three of us as I was saying you there's a number of other organizations on this during committee. We have made an intentional Pledge to have folks from across different sectors in different regions. We have two donor agencies So besides the and and DFI so besides the DFC we have the Australian DFAT We have the United Nations Capital Development Fund. We have water.org an excellent nonprofit doing fantastic work in the space ANZ Bank and Sherman and Sterling so very different from a lot of other groups who've developed other sorts of standards This is much more inclusive. We hope this also has made an intentional commitment to have Diversity inclusion having women as a part of the conversation having people from the global south as a part of the conversation And as you'll hear from me later in the in the Session when we developed the principles about a hundred and fifty organizations From all six continents were invited to to give input into them And so with that we're very excited to now hear from all of you at the end of this conversation We'd love to take questions at the ends if you have questions along the way Please fill them out in the Q&A app, but we will have ten minutes at the end for Q&A as well Thank you. Thank you very much Miss Karcher and for telling us a little bit more about how the initiative works Now I'll pass it over to mr. Stephen Libertor who will go over Why the initiative is happening and what gaps it is for Sure And so one of the things that I mentioned earlier was that we're the green bomb principles and I was on the initial executive committee of those So I so I helped to write them and and one of the keys is and what you'll see in this chart over with my shoulder is The the purpose of that entire process was to see to generate the outcome you see on this particular slide It was and remains one of the one of the challenges in the concept of impact investing remains the issue around Subjectivity what's considered green is different for everyone. What's considered social is different for everyone And so when you have that much, you know Such a diverse view of what could potentially work You need to have parameters or processes that are put in place or a framework put in place to have everyone feel Comfortable with what it is you're looking at if you're labeling something or naming something So I I managed 20 billion dollars and I know that 100% of my investors are not happy with 100% of the holdings But the key is is that they understand why we own something. We're able to explain it We have a process we're able to show them Directly and measurably why we own a particular security and what that does for the investor is it provides them comfort in How their capital is being deployed and one of the things in my mind of why? ESG and impact investing has been so so rapidly growing over the past few years And it's not really talked a lot about about enough in my view is that using ESG or impact as Criteria for how you're investing is really right now the easiest way for an investor to control how their dollars yen Euros whatever it is arc are utilized they understand where the money is going and That provides a great comfort to them because they're not only seeing first and foremost Financial return, but secondarily they're seeing the outcome of how their capital is being deployed and that's really critical But in order to get there you have to have issuers who are willing to generate securities that provide that type of directed and measurable outcome and so without frameworks in place issuers are extremely concerned and and very cautious around ever trying to do anything that could label them as the current terminology a green washer and So what is needed is an ecosystem of framework a process that's been put in place Where an issuer can look and say okay? Here's the framework. I'm aligning myself to here Expectations of me. I can say I'm in alignment with this framework And I think that provides them comfort that they're not going to get called out at some future data Well, what you did really wasn't in alignment of what we were thinking it should be because there is so much subjectivity You can at least point to this independent framework that allows for a Market to develop that you see on the slide has gotten to a place where we have over a trillion dollars of issuance and labeled Green social and sustainability bonds and now have two and a half to treat thrift three trillion of Outstanding labeled paper. So what hopefully we're going to try to do here is is expand that into the gender area One area that we continually hear investors very interested in increasingly interested in is the social bond space and It's always been historically while you why you see the breakout you see on this chart Is because historically Green investing or environmental investing has been easier to accomplish and that's primarily because the metrics associated with Measuring the environmental benefit are fairly well accepted and known and it's a fairly finite area it's certainly expanding now with the concept of blue economy investing and and Biodiversity wildlife conservation, but for the most part up until now green investing is related to primarily renewable energy So it's been very straightforward Social has always been a harder space to define and to identify Because there is such a wide variety of potential outcome associated with it Historically the easiest one of course is affordable housing, but now what we're seeing are other types of opportunities led by Unfortunately, the only positive has come out of COVID has been a boom in the social bond market where issuers were responding to Providing relief efforts associated with the impacts of COVID, but now we're starting to see obviously moving past that At this point, but also now looking for other opportunities within the social space to identify investment And the gender space is one that is continually discussed and talked about yet The two people sitting to my right on the stage are the only two that have ever issued a true Gender lens type of security in the public fixed income market So what we're hoping to do here is take the learnings that we've had from the women's livelihood bond series and from the DFCs to X women's initiative Program and spread that out to other issuers to get us to a place where we can start seeing a much wider variety of Opportunity specifically targeted to women because of as Natasha aptly pointed out all of the factors that currently point to an underserved Population that is critical to the heart of not only families, but the environment as well Thank you, Mr. Liberty. I'm telling us a little bit more about how we can see this asset class grow and Now I'll pass it back to you to go over a little bit about how Everyone can get involved and how organizations themselves can also get involved So one of the things that we what we're trying to do is get as many organizations and entities involved from from across the entire Ecosystem of the finance world Because ultimately what we're trying to do is bring in capital to address these these particular underfunding and under capitalized opportunities So what we've attempted to do is create this orange bond pledge which allows for people to talk about and be willing to look at and For us really from the finance side Asset managers be willing to evaluate potentially invest in transactions be involved in the discussions on the creation of these securities and the Structuring of these transactions, but it goes across that to a wider array of organizations that are issuers And what we're seeing is when we have conversations with issuers They're starting to recognize that you know used to be a few years ago. Everyone had a green framework Then they had a social framework now everybody's coming through with sustainability frameworks and to me That's the perfect evolution of the market because issuers are I are recognizing that their operations Have both environmental and societal impact So hopefully what we do is by getting this orange bond pledge in the orange bonds initiative moving forward We get more people involved and more people comfortable talking about this in a way that actually leads to you know actual real market Actions that are investable Thank you very much, Mr. Libertor for giving us a bit more information on how everyone can get involved the pledge is online And it's a digital pledge that we encourage Individuals and organizations to sign to become part of the initiative now I'll pass it over to Mr. Greenberg to give a bit more context on the initiative transitioning from just talking about gender lens Investing to actually putting that into action. Yes. Thanks So we've seen as dramatic uptick and interest I think all many of you would be familiar in gender lens investing Going back many years the FC what was OPIC recognized the importance of Our gen our mission to invest in women and have transactions which support women I've been involved with microfinance going back about 15 years And it was just understood that most microfinance borrowers were were women and there was strong positive impact as a result And but then of course it it I think became more understood and recognized that Across all of our portfolio really there could be impacts on women that need it to be better understood and also Cultivated and encouraged so we we I think were one of the early DFI's to really Try to understand that better and then put in place people to advocate for that and also Train our transaction teams and we've done a tremendous amount of train internal training to to have a dialogue with any client that comes in Whether they have a women focused impact mission or or not to try to help Us understand that and help us provide financing that will what will Recognize that in the in the best possible way So we that that could be smaller direct enterprises that we lend to and also a lot of funds that are building an agenda lens So we're we're both you know We like to think of ourselves as leaders and and tag along with people like hiX and also followers and where the market's going like like Steven is talking about and and just provide value-added where we can But I think you know for picking up on what's in the slide here While there's all this interest there there hasn't been a maturation of that to what Natasha and Steven are talking about to have a broader market that can invest in this and so two billion dollars it says on the side capital in 2021 to Gender Lens investing lots of events losses discussions, but only a very very small number of gender bonds actually issued And without the sort of standards around that that can create that that market that we all want to see So the role that we're trying to play is is to just wherever we can what partnering with hiX and and new bean to create Again catalyze other capital hopefully when DFI participates that sends a signal We're willing to provide in some cases subordinated capital to then help bring in the senior debt So whatever it appears the market needs For for us to take that additional risk. That's what we're that's what we're looking to do at this point Sure, thank you very much. Mr. Greenberg and now I'll pass it back over to you as well to go a bit over the approach The initiative is gonna take to actually putting this into action. Sure. So again picking up on what Steven said Fundamental to development of any market of this sort is is the standard setting So that means, you know putting principles in place Taxonomies the language is always very important aligning with other industry standards We don't need to reinvent the wheel on everything but build off of it and and just host gatherings and discussions and again credited Natasha and her team for For bringing the parties together and a very diversified group also to ensure that those principles represent reflect Really what the market needs? And a second piece, of course, is the actual transaction work and that's what you know our bread and butter is is actually doing deals And that's what gets us most excited We're seeing a tremendous amount of deal flow in this space Again, one of the things I think we all need to continue to be mindful of is the sort of I don't know what you call orange washing or gender washing right because you know, I It occurred to me maybe last year sometime that every other transaction that was coming to us had a big gender label on it And that's great on the one hand and I think in most cases, of course It was very intentional sincere But maybe not really well thought out or an attempt to capture our interest when it wasn't really very well developed Also, you know the the role of providing advice to orange bond issuers and just having that flow of information from people that are Experienced who have done this type of thing and and then of course the training component even you're alluding to that as well especially the lawyers, right And then lastly, it's just more broadly the whole market building exercise and we've seen this in other kinds of sectors, of course where There's a nascent interest in certain sectors, but not really a broad understanding about the ecosystem We see that now. I don't know one of the ones that comes to mind is the EV market Mobility I've been involved with the clean cooking space for a long time even going back some years microfinance So, you know, there's a there's a set of things that that Need to occur right to build the so-called ecosystem both the players and the concepts and and things like certification services Can be very very important to validate and provide a signal to the market that this Qualifies under that 2x gender less gender lens investing late. Thanks Thank you very much. Miss Greenberg for giving some more information about how the initiative will actually be put into practice And now I'll pass it over to miss culture to go over the a bit about the principles that will actually make up in these transactions So over to you miss culture So the principles we decided to have a three-pronged approach to this So the first principle is what's most traditionally been done in the gender lens investing space Which says you have to have gender positive capital allocation the proceeds of these bonds have to go towards projects that benefit women Historically we've seen a number of projects in which it's very checkbox and I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about They put one woman on the board and therefore it's there's a gender lens. This goes much beyond that We give people multiple options through principle one to make it more customized for what's relevant for their region or their sector It could be having a majority woman owned organization or a woman led organization And that is very relevant for some sectors and some countries But if you look at say emerging markets, it has to expand beyond that So principle one also gives you the option to invest in companies where the products and services Disproportionately and significantly impact anyone who faces gender-based discrimination Similarly, it allows you to look at gender equal workforces gender equal supply chains being gender inclusive and equitable in the Policies through you through which you govern these these different stakeholder groups who face these forms of gender-based Discrimination and note again. We're not just saying women. It can be many different ways people experience gender-based discrimination So that's principle one principle two really is more inward-looking Looking at folks like us who are issuers to make sure that the issuer has the capacity and diversity in their own leadership I think what's been really interesting is that Investing is really not a zero-sum game And we are losing a lot by not having more women and more of the LGBTQI plus community Making investment decisions. It's made a big difference in what a gender bond even looks like when you don't have women working on them Principle two looks at the leadership of these issuer organizations. So for instance, it would look at IX's own leadership It would look at also people on the team who are structuring the transactions. Do they have women? Do they have also Very importantly people of color the intersectionality again of having a woman of color working on a deal That's focused on Asia and Africa or Latin America and can make a significant difference in how you take investment decisions And finally principle three looks at transparency and I really enjoyed the debate yesterday on ESG And I think this is really really timely to think through how would you avoid issues like orange washing? so apart from aligning with say what the green and social bonds say which is to have a Framework on impact management to disclose this to have a second-party opinion We're also mandating that you have to verify outcomes with the end beneficiaries You have to have women who you've collected data from to ask whether the initiative is working or not So when you do your reporting back against the principles, there being a set of women who've who? Slives you were meant to transform who've actually provided data to tell you how that Transformation was experienced if or if not it was experienced at all we found that as a very powerful way to not only Have more magnified impact when we do our gender bonds, but also as a very key way to mitigate risk We actually understand how the proceeds are being used by these women And if we go to the the next slide, I'll give you as an example again It's very easy to talk about doing all of these things. So very quickly as a case study IAX has done a number of women's livelihood bonds our next bond which will be issued later in Q4 Which we're working very hard on on the side with with many of the partners who you see on over here as well It will be a $50 million transaction. It will be a blended finance product So we are going to we understand the other side of innovation is risk and there are ways to de-risk the transaction That's where the FIs play a key role in providing guarantees and subordinated that pieces It's a multi-country multi-continent bond. We're investing both in Asia and Africa Looking at sectors. So of course microfinance, but clean energy Sustainable agriculture all these sectors where women play a critical role not as victims, but as solutions and Finally, I think what's what's been really important to see is IAX again We looked inward to align with principal to we have over 70% of the team Working on the bond are women and over 90% are people of color From the regions that we're investing in which gives us we think an edge in understanding both the risk return and the impact and in particular the gender lens and Finally on a last note just because we're an orange bond doesn't mean we are competing with the other standards that out there This is also in line with the IKMA standards. It's also 2x compliant The orange bond principles have been made to be harmonized with what's out there So we're complementing what's there, but strengthening particularly the gender lens. Thank you Sure. Thank you very much Miss Gargene. Thank you for providing some more color on the initiative in general Now I'm gonna move to a panelist discussion where I have some questions I'd like to ask the three of you as well and please again do put your questions in the Q&A because we will designate some time Momentarily to go through those but the first question I wanted to ask the last panel and it kind of touches a little bit on what you just mentioned Miss Karcher about Collaborating or aligning with other principles And so there are a number of existing standards in the sustainable debt market Currently and I guess how does the orange one initiative aim to harmonize or further complement these and Mr. Librezo, I hope maybe you'd like to open up with with some remarks on that Sure So I think what we're gonna what we're attempting to do is make sure that we are exactly as Natasha said We're building upon what's already in this in the market at the moment and and as we saw from that one chart about the showing the growth of the the green social sustainability Bond market that those principles have been very catalytic in providing growth to the market And so what we're gonna try to do with the orange bond principles is Focus people more on the gender Concept, you know as I've seen this market continue to evolve and I see it in our own assets That we as I mentioned we're trying to be more granular investors are looking for more granularity We've launched our first actual social bond Account for a client this this calendar year 2022 So there's increasing demand, but we have to make sure that we have the supply that can meet it So what we're what we're working at is is Capturing the success that we saw with the green bond principles But bringing to bear the focus specifically on gender because what we have seen is that most people You know when we talked about this initially most people push back well You don't really need to do that. That's really a social bond. Well, yes, that is true, but we're not seeing the uptake that I think that you would expect nor the specificity of outcome that you could receive because Gender investing isn't purely social there are environmental aspects as well And as such we want to make sure that we're able to call out and bring to bear the opportunity set That's across pretty much every impact concept and impact thematic area by specifically funding women and gender in this particular case because of The the critical role that that women play in as I mentioned society But also how that translates into their effect on the environment So hopefully what we're going to be able to do is again as I mentioned Create an environment where issuers are comfortable coming to market because they have a specific framework They can say they're in alignment with and point to that has been independently created That's based off of the tremendously successful green bond principles that are the market standard Thank you very much, Mr. Libertor and now maybe I'd like Mr. Greenberg to come in a little bit on what role can DFI is Specifically play in catalyzing the initiative and moving it forward Yeah, well we back in 2018 we were one of the original members of a group of DFI's that Put together what we call the 2x challenge at that time and and that matured into the 2x collaborative and ultimately a set of criteria and principles to help people understand what What that would translate into and with some specificity and that and and that was a lengthy process It wasn't something that just happened overnight because again there was a learning curve to go up and sharing the experiences of different organizations and Perspectives but ultimately a set of specific criteria were agreed that we use when we're looking at transactions and to For ourselves to help determine whether we think it you know it qualifies in that regard But also to to convey to the market to signal to the market These are the kinds of things to think about and when you're coming to us as a DFI We're going to prioritize transactions that meet these criteria and it's not a one-size-fits-all And there are many different ways to to achieve Aspects of it. It could be obviously Women employment in a transaction. It could be in a project. It could be leadership at the management level It could be products and services that are developed specifically designed for women and it's really been astounding I think in certain ways to once you once you have start that dialogue a lot of companies that were That hadn't even thought about it realize that there were a lot of things that they either already were doing that they weren't properly Recognizing or that they could do to to advance that that would be consistent with their own business model and their own You know need to achieve the financial returns and also the social return objective that they wanted to achieve so We're so just to finish the thought Again our role is to provide In addition to you know helping build the ecosystem by participating in the steering committee our main job is to get money out the door and Whether that's in the companies or funds And and we're very I think now well positioned to do that and then again provide that Capital that's going to de-risk things that otherwise the commercial markets aren't ready to do and and then in turn, you know collaborate with the with commercial players to To provide the type of capital that's gonna it's gonna get them into the transaction It's it's very we have a very specific and focused mindset in that regard. Thank you. Sure. Absolutely. Thank you Mr. Greenberg and Just just I know earlier you mentioned about kind of impact washing and greenwashing being quite prevalent in Across across the green bond industry, but perhaps it's got you like to give some some more color on how the orange one initiative is actually going to Be different to that and to make sure that it doesn't fall into the same trap so I Think women need to be given a value and a voice in these investment decisions So not just as part of the issuer not just as having more investors who have these in their teams But also the actual women on the ground So I'll I'll maybe answer this with an example because I think the other and I'll tie to another question that I see is getting a Lot of upticks on how do you involve the global south and intersectionality? But I think when you have a gender bonds for instance in our women's livelihood bond series when we are putting together the portfolio We actually don't just do a diligence on the company and their staff on on their management on their leadership on their operations We also go and have a number of Days where we spend asking the women questions and I think that's been very very powerful It shifts the power dynamic back towards the people whose lives were meant to be transforming It's it blows my mind that if you've never experienced a certain kind of discrimination that you would be able to solve that Problem and very often a top-down approach where we tell women what they need is what we need to stop doing in gender Investing so when and this also helps us take a very data-driven approach when we're asking women for information We can map them better to the SDGs We can understand how exactly do you design loan contracts with impact covenants and gender action plans to push the boundaries of What the women think is most important for them instead of us Imagining what we think it's it's most important based on papers that we've read in our in our ivory towers So I think the verification element will be very powerful I think having a way to map how you align with the principles Maybe she's of orange as we have shades of green would be very powerful and I also think just making sure that that You're taking this data-driven approach and being very transparent about your reporting during COVID We didn't meet every single outcome women didn't for instance increase income Which is one of the outcomes we were tracking But they had a lot of other benefits for for instance in the wash sector the water and sanitation sector in building better food Security, etc. Which was critical for covert recovery. So we started shifting measurement towards that So I think all of these things together will help mitigate the risk of of orange washing if you will as time goes on Very similar to the question that we have on how do we integrate the global south when we develop the principles the 150 organizations who joined our round tables we had people from all six continents predominantly from the global south Who were giving input into this and I think that's been very critical that we brought those new Perspectives in even though the steering committee we have people who are leading the space in many ways But hearing in particular from civil society from human rights experts from gender lens and Experts as well helped us think through these things in a more robust way Thank you Sure, absolutely And it's great to build on some of the questions we have in the Q&A But there's just one one more I wanted to touch on with maybe miss liberatory being a good position to answer this But how will the initiative actually help scale the amount of transactions in the gender bond market But also the size of orange bond transactions. I think that you know, if it's okay I was gonna just add one thing to what Natasha was just saying one of the things that occurred during COVID for us as an investor was that while every Targeted impact that we thought initially was going to be achieved wasn't What gave us tremendous comfort was one of the main challenges when you're dealing in any type of microfinance situation is How do we gauge how those lending institutions interact with their client? And are they treating them in a fair manner? Are they just in the way that they're working with them and it gave us an opportunity to go to IIX and say well Let's talk to the lending institutions to find out. What are they proactively doing to help their clients? Are they reaching out or they asking if they need anything and so that's always been a real Challenge in in this particular space is ensuring that the that in this case the women that are receiving the financial The financial outcome are also being treated in a way that helps them get through it when there's challenges or problems So that was a real positive. I thought In and I think that didn't answer the question is asked George I think that it's really important one of the things in in asset management is that's critical is having comfort that there is scalability and What you need in place is you know when we look at smaller types of transactions There's only a handful of us that are really willing to dig in and look at a 50 million dollar transaction So what we want to be able to do is create template like structures that have a framework associated with them That allow investors to be willing to commit the time and energy and effort to evaluate the 50 million dollar transaction Because they know the next one is going to be a hundred the one after that's going to be 150 Then you're at 200 and you're getting up to index eligible size at 300 and you're able to see a diverse opportunity set where the You can actually build an entirely you can build an entire portfolio of these types of Securities in a diversified manner where you're not specifically levered to just one issuer one part of the world one type of outcome So I think that if we're able to do this correctly We're going to be able to put ourselves in a position where we're going to be able to rapidly scale the space And it also proves out that there's actual people and interested in investing in this way But also that there's opportunities to invest this way Sure, absolutely. Thank you very much miss Libertor and and just a follow-up question here from the Q&A as well Is maybe you can share a little bit more about the journey that the steering committee took to actually bring the orange bond initiative to the forefront of the markets and what was the process like and What what how can others interested in creating these initiatives learn from your journey and use that so perhaps Ms. Gachi you'd like to start off and then we can open it to the other team Yes, just very quickly. It was quite the journey I think we were it was interesting as we were doing gender lens investing since we started which was during the 2008 financial crisis We just didn't know that's what it was called. We just thought that was good business So it's been a long journey when we did our first woman's livelihood bond Some of the bankers who shall not be named said to just call it a high yield emerging market Bonner will be sold we said no we'd like to call it a woman's livelihood bond We want people to know that a woman that firm is designed this and the proceeds are for women So it's been a truly interesting journey But now I think we're at a stage where people have started valuing this I think a lot of the social movements whether it's me, too or black lives matter have brought Things to the attention of the wider financial industry that we cannot ignore these sort of social movements And we cannot ignore half of humanity and potentially more than that When we're making these decisions when we put together the steering committee I think we were therefore very keen to ensure there were people from different countries from different sectors People of different colors at the table are designing this but most importantly I think is is folks such as yourselves who come and join us in these conversations who that's why we have the pledge set up It doesn't actually mandate you to have a financial commitment It just allows us to engage you in roundtables to let you know about Transactions that are happening and to share market intelligence reports when we verify the impact with the women So again a warm invitation to everyone here to sign the pledge and join us all This is not just the steering committee who's leading it. It's all of us. It takes a village to build a movement like this Maybe we open it up I'm Doug Biel with Boston Consulting Group And I've worked with a number of the big global banks on their sustainable and social finance framework So how they make decisions around supporting their clients and labeling and things like this and there's always a trade-off between Getting the label and then the cost of getting that label versus the benefit to their client in Lower cost of capital right the process you've just described sounds fantastic, but also sounds very high cost What's the benefit of then labeling something an orange bond you get? Different investors longer-term investors better pricing that would be my no, that's an excellent question I'll start and then if Richard or Steven you want to jump in the first thing on the cost is people usually think the impact Measurement and the verification with women is going to be a cost first We think that's you investing in taking smarter investment decisions. You're investing in understanding risks better You're investing in making sure the impact you're promising is better We're also rolling out digital impact assessment tools that are quite low cost and easily scalable So that you can control the cost of the impact verification with the women The other costs are very much on par with what you would say in a green and and a social bond And I think the labeling will allow investors or DFIs who want to play a catalytic role Understand that that is in line with certain principles and therefore they may want to come in So we hope it has that signaling effect as well, but with either of you Yeah, sure This is a great question that I get all the time and it doesn't cost issuers more to do these securities that it's fallacy We are simply asking is if you are trying to Structure a transaction that you believe has a specific outcome and I'll use Green investing because it's really the simplest one to discuss at the moment If you're coming to market to tell me that you're going to build a solar power project Then it's reasonable for me to assume that you can provide to me the megawatt hours of the capacity of that project And the power that it's producing and if you can't you're incompetent and I shouldn't invest with you to begin with So you highlighted a couple of the benefits is a much wider Investor base a much more stable investor base One of the things that we have heard back consistently from issuers that have created and structured frameworks whether it's social environmental sustainability And it was actually a surprise to me was how many have come back and said you know what this framework really helped us to better Evaluate our own operations and have allowed us to improve our operations in a handful of different ways And then the last thing that I'll use and this is not old cynical bond guy You know talking is it's amazing to me every issuer who comes to market puts out a press release Associated with a green social sustainability bound. That's called marketing. You pay for marketing So, you know that this is a you know, this is a problem that you know We continue to talk about and deal with but try to get issuers to understand again That you're attempting to do something different You're also trying to establish a business that would help you grow in the future that also allows you to speak positively to your Regulators your employees your future customers and also I think Hopefully opens up an idea in your head about a wider opportunity set of potential transactions that you may able to to create In the future that has a long-run benefit associated with it Absolutely. Thank you very much, Mr. Libeton. Thank you all for your your questions and and and thanks for three of you for Telling us a little bit more about the initiative We have run out of time. We have run over time, but we will be around to take any more questions You have or any more discussion. So thank you all for coming to to see us And we hope you've enjoyed learning a bit more about our initiative