Despite significant growth, the report’s authors call for greater transparency and more credible reporting, cautioning that without these safeguards gender bonds risk becoming little more than “vanity projects”.
A gender-focused bond market study published by Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX), the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE)’s platform for sustainable finance, and 2X Global, the global industry body promoting gender lens investing, has revealed that bond issuances for projects that advance women’s empowerment have grown exponentially over the past five years.
The study found that the market for gender-focused bonds has grown over recent years, rising from 74 issuances by 19 issuers mobilising $44bn (€37bn) as of 1 June 2020, to 576 issuances by 133 issuers mobilising over $246bn as of 1 June 2025.
Speaking to Impact Investor, Jessica Espinoza, CEO of 2XGlobal, said the growth in gender-focused bonds is highly significant and shows that the market is evolving from a niche segment to one that attracts serious investor interest.
“Look no further than the numbers. Issuances have more than doubled in five years and this sends a clear signal that the dual promise of financial returns and social impact is gaining traction with issuers and investors,” she said, adding that in addition to a shift in scale this also demonstrated a shift in mindset.
“There’s a growing conviction that advancing gender equality is not just a social good but also a driver of resilient, future-oriented finance. Mainstream markets are beginning to channel capital toward meaningful, measurable outcomes for women’s empowerment,” she added.
Collaborative focus
Gender-focused bonds typically fund women-led businesses, female entrepreneurship, education and inclusion, as well as access to essential services, or support clearly defined targets of female representation in leadership teams or boards.
To identify these bonds the study’s authors used a methodology developed by LGX and inspired by the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), UN Women and International Finance Corporation (IFC)’s guidelines.
The 576 bonds identified include use-of-proceeds bonds, including green, social or sustainability bonds where either partial proceeds or 100% of proceeds are allocated to projects that advance gender equality objectives under UN Sustainable Development Goal 5, and sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs), in which at least one target is related to reaching pre-defined gender equality or women’s empowerment objectives.
In addition to providing key insights into the state of the market, the aim of the study is to provide recommendations to propel financing for the advancement of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The authors also hope the report will help to advance the certification of gender-focused bonds using the 2X Global Certification framework in order to drive transparency and generate greater confidence in the market.
“With this report, we hope to turn momentum into meaningful impact, by providing not only robust data, but a catalyst for what comes next in order to unlock what could be a trillion dollar opportunity,” said Espinoza.
Espinoza explained that in order for gender bonds to reach their potential, there was a need for a collaborative focus on building credibility for the sector.
“The study is about laying the groundwork for scale and ensuring that as this market matures, it contributes to systemic impact for women and girls,” she added.
Social and sustainability bonds dominate
The study found that the majority of gender-focused bonds are issued as social or sustainability bonds, accounting for 81% of the total, with green bonds (8%) and SLBs (11%) accounting for the remainder of the market.
The study also revealed that corporate issuers predominantly located in Europe and Asia are leading the way in terms of gender-focused SLB issuances, and in the area of use-of proceeds sustainable bond issuances, the findings point to supranational, sovereign and agencies issuers making up the leading category of issuers.
In total, 104 gender-focused bonds reported that 100% of their proceeds were allocated to UN SDG 5-related projects and an additional 105 bonds reported allocating between 80% and 90% of their funds to such projects.
Despite recent growth, gender-focused bonds make up just 3% of all sustainable bonds since the market’s inception and including mature bonds. The study’s authors suggest this presents a largely untapped opportunity.
“We stand at the frontier of a trillion-dollar opportunity and the market is only beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible when gender equality is integrated into mainstream finance,” said Espinoza, adding that reports like this play a crucial role in turning early momentum into lasting and credible growth.
Transparency and accountability
Espinoza said that typically, when the proceeds of sustainable bonds finance multiple project categories, issuers can choose to report impact separately for each project category (at category level), and/or aggregated across all categories (at the global issuance level). Issuers also have the option to report even more granular information for each project financed by the bonds (at project level).
At the global issuance and project category level, the report found that only 59 and 46 bonds respectively, representing just 14% and 11% of gender-focused issuances, reported impact metrics, included disaggregated metrics specific to women.
The study found that issuers of use-of-proceeds bonds for example, often use impact metrics that encompass a broad group such as vulnerable people or number of patients, without disaggregating impact specific to women.
Espinoza said she would like to see more issuers moving from generic social metrics to sex-disaggregated, gender-specific indicators that show clearly who benefits, alongside being explicit about gender objectives and target groups, setting ambitious gender targets that go beyond compliance and business-as-usual, and providing regular, transparent post-issuance reporting.
“Transparency and credible reporting is absolutely critical to protect the future of this market,” she said. “We’ve seen this story before. Without accountability and impact measurement, gender bonds risk being nothing more than vanity projects.”
