In 2021, sustainable bonds surged past $1 trillion in assets under management (AUM)—a win for climate-conscious investors and impact-driven financiers back then. 

However, gender bonds, which directly target economic empowerment for half of the world’s population, are still a rounding error in global capital flows.

Women own 30% of registered businesses in Africa but receive less than 10% of commercial bank financing. Meanwhile, female-led funds are statistically proven to outperform the male-led, yet the investment gap stubbornly continues. 

The irony? The very financial sector that prides itself on numbers is seemingly ignoring some of the most obvious ones.

Hence, the Gender Bonds Toolkit Dissemination Workshop, held on 27th and 28th January 2025 at the Radisson Blu Anchorage Hotel in Lagos sought to address these issues. 

Hosted by FSD Africa in partnership with UN Women, the event assembled financial sector stakeholders to discuss how gender bonds could finally become a mainstream instrument in Africa’s capital markets.

Gender Bonds Toolkit: Experts Call for Inclusive Finance as Only 6% SDGs on Track for 2030

With panel sessions and a fireside chat, the Gender Bonds Toolkit Dissemination Workshop touched on the challenges, opportunities, and strategies required to close the gender financing gap.

Including regulatory frameworks and investor engagement, the discussions revealed a mix of cautious positivity and hard-hitting facts about why capital markets remain sluggish in embracing gender finance—and what needs to change.

These challenges formed the foundation for deep discussions at the workshop, starting with an in-depth look at the Nigerian market.

Thematic Bonds in Nigeria: Market Insights and Opportunities

Panel: Exploring the Opportunity for Thematic Bonds in Nigeria

The discussion kicked off with an overview of Nigeria’s dynamic capital market, where thematic bonds—especially green and gender bonds—are gaining interest. Experts from Renaissance Capital Africa, Cygnum Capital Group, Securities and Investment Services Department (SEC Nigeria) and London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) delivered insights into the regulatory sector and the role of financial institutions in driving sustainable investment.

Key Takeaways:

• Financial institutions have so far led thematic bond issuance, leveraging development finance institutions (DFIs) and impact investors.
• Nigeria’s SEC has been indispensable in establishing frameworks for green, social, and gender bonds, ensuring compliance with global standards to attract investors.
• Sovereign and corporate issuances in Nigeria, including green sukuks—a new climate finance instrument (green Islamic bond) that has the potential to channel the $2 trillion Islamic Finance market to fund green and sustainable investment projects—and gender-focused programs reveal the country’s growing participation in the sustainable finance ecosystem.
• Challenges remain in investor awareness and ensuring sustained adoption of gender bonds beyond donor-driven incentives.

Alternative Capital Mobilization: Structures, Impact & Lessons Learned

Fireside Chat: Scaling Gender Bonds through Innovative Financial Structures

At the Gender Bonds Toolkit Dissemination Workshop, Panellists from InfraCredit, Aruwa Capital Management, and Symbiotics discussed alternative funding models for gender bonds, emphasizing private capital mobilization and blended finance structures.

Key Takeaways:

• Women-led funds are three times more likely to invest in female CEOs and twice as likely to fund female founders.
• Aruwa Capital has deployed $40 million in assets under management (AUM), with 70% of its portfolio comprising female-led businesses.
• Infracredit’s blended facility has unlocked financing for clean energy projects, benefiting communities without electricity.
• Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are important in gender-focused investing, often serving 100% female clients, showing a clear business case for gender bonds.

From Strategy to Issuance: Strengthening Gender Finance Ecosystems

Panel: Defining Gender Goals, Data Quality & Investor Engagement

This session examined how institutions are structuring gender bonds, focusing on data-driven strategies, investor confidence, and regulatory compliance. Panelists from Access Bank, Absa, and the West African Development Bank (BOAD) shared best practices.

Key Takeaways:

• Access Bank’s “W Initiative” has driven financial inclusion through targeted women-focused banking programs.
• Absa has mobilized $350 million to support women-owned businesses and is leveraging UN Women’s Women Empowerment Principles (WEPs) to shape its gender strategy.
• BOAD’s gender strategy follows a three-pillar approach: (1) Institutionalizing gender in financial planning, (2) Economic empowerment, and (3) Job creation and market access.
• Gender data is necessary: Accurate disaggregation of financial data allows institutions to track the real impact of gender-focused investments.

Lessons from Issuers: Challenges, Innovations & Future Prospects

Panel: Insights from an Issuer’s Perspective

Issuers shared first-hand experiences on scaling through the bond market, engaging investors, and overcoming regulatory limitations. The session featured representatives from FSD Africa, BII (British International Investment), and private-sector issuers.

Key Takeaways:

• Gender bonds require “sweeteners”: Partial or full guarantees, blended financing, and development finance institution (DFI) backing have been essential in securing investor confidence and ensuring successful issuances.
• Credit rating challenges persist: Many issuers struggle with low credit ratings, making it difficult to attract institutional investors without guarantees or risk mitigation mechanisms.
• Investor education is key: While thematic bonds are gaining interest, many local investors still prioritise traditional instruments. Awareness campaigns and engagement strategies are important to promoting demand.
• Thematic bond structuring must ensure targeted impact: Funds raised must be transparently allocated to gender-inclusive businesses and female entrepreneurs, avoiding the risk of “gender-washing.”
• Local currency issuances are essential for market development: Issuing gender bonds in local currency can help mitigate foreign exchange risks and attract domestic investors.

Scaling Up Gender Bonds: The Road Ahead

Panel: Telling the Impact narrative – Impact monitoring and reporting simplified

This session focused on how financial institutions, regulatory bodies, and development organisations can scale gender bonds as a mainstream financing tool in Africa. Key discussions included insights from the London Stock Exchange’s Sustainable Bond Market, African Development Bank (AfDB), and Nigeria’s SEC.

Key Takeaways:

• The London Stock Exchange’s Sustainable Bond Market (SBM) provides a credible listing platform for green, social, and gender bonds. Annual due diligence ensures transparency and credibility, reducing the risk of misallocated funds.
• Multilateral institutions like AfDB play important roles by providing technical assistance, first-loss guarantees, and de-risking mechanisms to encourage more issuances.
• Investor participation needs to expand beyond DFIs: Encouraging local institutional investors, pension funds, and asset managers to integrate gender bonds into their portfolios will be critical to long-term market growth.
• Regulatory clarity and incentives can drive adoption: Policymakers must ensure that frameworks are in place to support issuers while incentivising investors to prioritise gender-focused investments.
• Blended finance and public-private partnerships (PPPs) can accelerate adoption: Combining concessional financing from DFIs with private sector capital can help scale gender bond issuances and create a more sustainable market.

Finally: A Sustainable Future for Gender Finance

The Gender Bonds Toolkit Dissemination Workshop reiterated the need for a well-structured approach to scaling gender bonds in Nigeria and Africa. While there are still challenges—ranging from regulatory issues to investor reluctance—there is an obvious momentum in the market.

Gender bonds go beyond impacting investment tools, they are viable financial instruments that can drive inclusive economic growth. 

With continued collaboration among financial institutions, regulators, and development partners, gender bonds can transition from a niche product to a mainstream funding mechanism, bringing about billions in capital for women-led enterprises and gender-inclusive projects across Africa.

The key to success lies in regulatory support, strong market education, investor engagement, and innovative financing structures. In embedding gender finance into mainstream capital market strategies, Nigeria and Africa can fully leverage sustainable finance to drive economic empowerment and financial inclusion.

The round was co-led by Aruwa Capital Management and follow-on investor Newtown Partners. It also landed additional follow-on investment from Ventures Platform, one of the company’s earliest institutional investors. This new round of financing brings MDaaS Global’s total investment to date to $6.8 million.

The additional capital will be used to further develop the company’s proprietary technology platform, BeaconOS, which it launched last year, and to expand its healthcare network to all 36 states in Nigeria through a mix of company-owned and affiliate clinics.

This strategic move propels MDaaS Global closer to its mission of democratising access to high-quality diagnostics and healthcare services across the continent.

With a focus on reaching underserved communities, MDaaS Global launched its first diagnostic clinic in 2017, providing imaging, cardiac, and laboratory services.

Since then, the company has experienced remarkable growth, expanding to 17 locations across 10 states in Nigeria.

Through a combination of its technology backbone and distributed care network, MDaaS Global has served over 275,000 patients to date and currently supports over 1,300 healthcare facilities, companies, and HMOs who rely on BeaconHealth for their diagnostics needs.

BeaconOS, the company’s latest technology, serves as the digital backbone of MDaaS Global’s healthcare network, akin to a computer’s operating system, that optimises and connects their physical clinics, which act as the ‘hardware.’

Built on top of BeaconOS are a suite of applications designed both to streamline healthcare delivery at BeaconHealth clinics and to digitally integrate with the company’s diverse network of partner organisations.

Last year, MDaaS launched its first application, called Olewerk, for optimising diagnostic workflows, currently deployed across all of their 17 locations, and developed its first partner-facing application, Beam, which enables its corporate partners to seamlessly manage occupational health for their teams.

Speaking on the company’s technology strategy, Oluwasoga Oni, the CEO, shared,

“Years of operating within Nigeria’s healthcare system have given us a deep understanding of its challenges and points of friction. At MDaaS Global, we’re leveraging this experience to develop technology uniquely tailored to the African healthcare experience. BeaconOS isn’t just about solving our own challenges; it’s empowering our patients and partners with solutions customised to their needs and revolutionising healthcare delivery across Africa.”

With this injection of capital, the company will develop new applications on the BeaconOS platform that solve critical issues in the healthcare system:

• An affiliate clinic portal will facilitate collaboration with partner clinics across the country, allowing for real-time patient referrals, seamless results management, and standardized quality control. This digital integration will enable rapid expansion of MDaaS Global’s clinic network and broader access to high-quality diagnostics services for communities across Nigeria.
• MDaaS plans to build and launch digital integrations with Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), aiming to disrupt the traditionally manual and inefficient authorizations and claims processes.
• Finally, the company is developing a patient-facing application that allows patients to book visits at MDaaS-owned and affiliate clinics, view their results, access follow-up care, and manage their health insurance enrollments – all from one central portal.

The need for improved diagnostics across Africa is critical. In 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Committee for Africa estimated that only about 30% of health facilities in Africa have the necessary equipment to perform basic diagnostic tests, with marginalised and underserved populations being the most affected.

Concurrently, the organisation identified the availability of and access to diagnostic and laboratory services as one of the key pillars to achieving universal health coverage.

Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes, founder & managing partner at Aruwa Capital Management stated,

“We are thrilled to partner with MDaaS Global on their mission to revolutionise healthcare delivery in Africa. MDaaS’ track record of consistent and impressive growth, as well as their dedication to bringing high-quality diagnostics to high-need patients, resonated deeply with us. As a gender-lens investor, we are especially excited to support a company that is driving change for women across Nigeria – over 60% of BeaconHealth patients are women, predominantly of reproductive age – and MDaaS shares our commitment to building gender-diverse teams.”

Also, Llew Claasen, managing partner at Newtown Partners shared,

“At Newtown Partners, we invest in companies with the potential to make transformative changes in their industries, and MDaaS Global exemplifies this ethos. Since first investing in MDaaS in 2021, we have been continually impressed by their ability to grow in a challenging market, their insightful approach to technology development, and their ambitious vision for expanding healthcare access across Africa. We are excited to further support MDaaS in their journey and are confident in their ability to deliver value to patients and stakeholders alike.”

Oluwasoga Oni concludes,

“Expanding our network across Nigeria is about more than just growth; it’s about democratising access to quality healthcare. With scale comes affordability, reach, and the ability to drive systemic change. At MDaaS Global, we’re not just building clinics or software; we’re building a healthier future for all Nigerians, and hopefully, all Africans.”

Added to expanding its team, geographical operations and marketing to increase its 7,000-strong active agent network three-fold this year, the equity-and-debt round, which also included participation from HAVAÍC and AAIC, will enable CrowdForce to distribute more point of sale terminals to its partners in the next 12 to 18 months, scaling its financial services within one kilometre, or within 15 minutes, of all Nigerians. 

CrowdForce is boosting seamless access to critical financial services, with emphasis on the underserved. The company is actively doing this through its products and services offering, with its proprietary technology and extensive agent distribution network across the country, enhancing its unique competitive advantages.

Launched by Oluwatomi Ayorinde and Damilola Ayorinde, crowd Force leverages partnerships with larger brick-and-mortar businesses such as gas stations and turns them into mobile bank branches that offer float services while storing their cash on a PayForce digital wallet.

The fintech company distributes its POS terminals to businesses such as pharmacies and reseller networks. So far, it has partnered with 19,000 fuel stations, 20,0000 resellers and 6,000 pharmacies to broaden its distribution network, with claims of having the largest liquidity among Nigerian agent banking networks, leveraging more than ₦1.7 trillion via its partners.

CrowdForce charges a 0.6% commission per transaction its partners make across all boards and has been cash positive since 2020 while growing 25% month-on-month to serve 1.9 million unique customers in 25 Nigerian states to date.