The Ghana Stock Exchange is in the preliminary stage of developing a Gender Bond to attract female-led businesses.

The move is part of many initiatives by the GSE to get more women-led businesses to raise capital on the bourse with ease.

Deputy Managing Director of the GSE, Frank Berle, disclosed this to Joy Business at the GSE ‘Ring the Bell’ for gender equality event aimed at celebrating International Women’s Day.

The ‘Ring the Bell' for gender equity initiative was instituted by the World Federation of Exchanges to celebrate the achievement of women-led businesses on the stock market.

Speaking on this year’s theme “Invest in Women; Accelerate Progress”, the Deputy Managing Director of the Ghana Stock Exchange, said his outfit is making progress with initiatives to attract female-led businesses.

“We have brought some programmes to benefit women over here as you can see our Managing Director is a woman and many of the staff at the Ghana Stock Exchange are women. The bourse is pleased to host this initiative which is an idea from the World Federation of Exchanges and we intend to make it an annual celebration”.

“We’re trying to encourage and bring them up so their businesses will get to the level where they can list on the stock exchange. There are other initiatives that we’re doing like introducing the gender bond possibly to see how it can encourage other women to come onto the market” he said.

Speaking on the same topic, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, Tolu Lacroix, emphasised the need for government to address challenges faced by women in accessing finance.

Meanwhile, the guidelines for the Gender Bond will soon be unveiled by the GSE.