African Development Bank (AfDB), has been included in the issuer of social bonds, the Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Network (NSBN).
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The AfDB’s Communications and External Relations Department made this known in a statement on Wednesday.
The NSBN is one of the world’s largest issuers of social bonds and it is global and publicly available platform designed to improve transparency in the market for green, social and sustainability bonds.
The AfDB explained that the 10 Bank bonds were added to the platform, including its landmark three billion dollars Fight COVID-19 Social Bond unveiled in March 2020.
The Fight COVID-19 bond is the largest Social Bond ever inaugurated at the time in international capital markets.
It said Fight COVID-19 remained the largest dollar-denominated Social Bond and was aimed to help alleviate the economic and social impact of the pandemic on livelihoods and Africa’s economies.
The bank stated that by joining the Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Network, socially responsible issuers were provided a unique opportunity to bring attention to their concrete actions in terms of financing climate change and green growth.
The statement quoted Hassatou Diop N’Sele, Treasurer of the AfDB, as saying “the Nasdaq Sustainable Bond platform allows us to showcase our work in combating poverty and in helping move the African continent forward.
“Our Fight COVID-19 social bond is about saving lives and livelihoods.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that AfDB established its Social Bond framework in 2017 and had raised the equivalent of 5.5 billion dollars through five transactions supporting 89 eligible social projects in 28 African countries as of Dec. 31, 2019.
In 2018, the Bank was designated Second most impressive social or sustainability bond issuer at the Global Capital SRI Awards.
ALSO, the Bank’s NOK one billion 3-year Social Bond issued in 2019 was awarded “Social Bond of the Year” by Environmental Finance.