World Bank issues first-ever poverty bond, gets $1.5 billion
Friday, April 20, 2018
By Dion Rabouin
The World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) launched the world’s first poverty bond this week, a debt offering representatives say is designed to lift up the poor, and global investors literally couldn’t get enough.
While IDA, which has never before raised money through a bond, issued just $1.5 billion in debt, international investors pledged $4.6 billion in offers – making the bond more than three times oversubscribed, a World Bank spokesman told Yahoo Finance.
“Yesterday we launched the first IDA bond. We went to market to raise money for the poor,” said World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva. “This is something that just five years ago people would say cannot be done.”
World Bank officials said the decision to issue the bond was based on a “transformation” in the market’s approach to bond buying.
Photo courtesy of Chhor Sokunthea.
Source: Yahoo Finance (link opens in a new window)
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