UNDP, BSEC join forces to scale sustainable finance
Business Desk :
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Wednesday.
The MoU was signed at the BSEC Bhaban, Dhaka, Bangladesh, marking a significant step toward mobilizing long-term domestic and international capital for climate-resilient and socially impactful investments.
Under the agreement, UNDP will support BSEC in developing key market infrastructure, including a Sustainable Finance Taxonomy, an Impact Measurement and Monitoring Framework (IMMF), and a Third-Party Verification Mechanism.
These tools are expected to improve transparency, comparability, and credibility of thematic bond issuances, addressing a key concern for global investors.
A central pillar of the collaboration is aligning Bangladesh’s thematic bond market with international standards, including those promoted under the EU-supported Global Green Bond Initiative (GGBI), backed by the Green Climate Fund.
Speaking at the ceremony, UNDP Bangladesh Resident Representative Stefan Liller said, “Bangladesh’s capital market has huge potential to raise long-term financing for high-impact environmental and social investments through thematic bonds.
As Bangladesh advances beyond LDC status and faces rising climate risks, thematic bonds can help attract essential domestic and global capital. UNDP, in partnership with BSEC, is committed to strengthening the ecosystem needed to scale up these instruments.”
Khondoker Rashed Maqsood, Chairman of BSEC emphasized, “As the regulator, BSEC is committed to ensuring that our market framework evolves by strengthening governance, enhancing transparency, and building investor confidence.
BSEC, in partnership with UNDP and other stakeholders, will continue to provide a supportive, predictable, and robust regulatory environment to enable this transformation”.
Highlighting UNDP’s global experience in supporting sustainable finance markets, Maliha Muzammil, Programme Specialist, UNDP Bangladesh, noted that the collaboration will focus on strengthening regulatory frameworks, enhancing issuer capacity, and ensuring robust impact measurement to crowd in private capital aligned with national development and climate priorities.
The ceremony was attended by Farzana Lalarukh, Commissioner, BSEC, Md. Ali Akbar, Commissioner, BSEC, and Owais Parray, Country Economic Advisor, UNDP Bangladesh, who underscored the importance of issuer readiness and credible impact reporting to build a robust pipeline of high-quality thematic bonds. Senior representatives from BSEC and UNDP were also present at the event.