As part of its commitment towards UN’s Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative, Bahrain Bourse (BHB) virtually rang the bell for gender equality for the third consecutive year in parallel with the celebration of International Women’s Day on Monday, 8th March 2021. The virtual Ring the Bell event was held in collaboration with a number of stakeholders to demonstrate best practices in the implementation of gender equality across listed companies and other market participants.
On this occasion, Narjes Farookh Jamal, Chief Operating Officer said: “We strongly believe in the importance of achieving gender equality and our influential role, as a stock exchange, to advance gender equality initiatives across listed companies and other market participants. Setting Bahrain Bourse as an example, we have rolled out a series of “Working From Home” initiatives to promote and empower employees across the organisation, particularly female professionals in the workplace. These initiatives stem from the recommendations proposed by the ‘Gender Equality Committee’ and falls in line with our ESG guidelines and sustainability roadmap.”
“Within Bahrain’s capital market, we have 5% in terms of female Board representation but we are slightly exceeding the global benchmark where we stand at 4.65% for female CEOs across listed companies. Recent statistics show that the representation of female investors at Bahrain Bourse reached 28%, and the value of shares held by females is currently BD208 million, and total volume of shares traded by female investors were 734 million shares.” Narjes added.
Bahrain Bourse has joined 88 other global exchanges to mark the occasion of International Women’s Day over a week of bell-ringing activities in partnership with the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) Initiative, the World Federation of Exchanges, International Finance Corporation (IFC), UN Global Compact, UN Women, and Women in ETFs to help raise awareness. The event is being held for the 7th consecutive year globally. This year, the UN’s International Women Day is themed “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.”
The global bell ringing events aim to bring attention to the pivotal role the private sector can play in advancing gender equality to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and to raise awareness about the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs).
It is noteworthy that Bahrain Bourse has announced in 2019 its voluntary commitment towards the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative in promoting sustainable and transparent capital markets. The SSE initiative focuses on sustainable disclosure of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors.
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