The Asian Development Bank raised nearly US$20 million from the first gender bond issued in Kazakhstan, reported representatives of the financial institute. According to the ADB Assistant Treasurer Jonathan Grosvenor, these proceeds will contribute to the promotion and expansion of rights and opportunities as well as gender equality. The attracted funds worth 38 billion tenge will be allocated for financing the Promoting Gender Equality in Housing Finance Project. Otbasy Bank provides the new housing program, which will be launched this spring. The external borrowing will be guaranteed by Kazakh Ministry of Finance.
“And this project targets three main outputs. Firstly, the provision of long-term affordable finance for at least 3,000 women borrowers, mostly from rural communities. And by the ‘rural’, we define this as outside of the normal metropolitan centers of Nur-Sultan, Almaty, Aktau and Atyrau. The borrowers, of course, must be female, of the legal age, and they must be citizens of Kazakhstan. At least 20 percent of the mortgages financed by the ADB loan, will be to low-income female borrowers with a monthly household income of less than 200,000 tenge,” said Jonathan Grosvenor, ADB Assistant Treasurer.
According to experts, to date, more than nine million women live in Kazakhstan. Almost 4.5 million out of them are employed, while half of them provide for their families independently. At the same time, women receive a salary on average one third less than men.
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