Kathmandu: UN Women Nepal marked its 6th annual Ring The Bell for Gender Equality on March 26. Ring The Bell for Gender Equality is part of a global campaign where more than 115 stock exchanges champion women’s empowerment in the workplace, marketplace, and community.
The Global Compact Nepal (GCN), International Finance Corporation (IFC), Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE), and UN Women, jointly hosted the event Ring the Bell for Gender Equality 2026 under the theme “Women. Leadership. Action. For Just and Prosperous Economies.” In attendance were NEPSE listed companies, government regulators, signatories of the business-centred Women’s Empowerment Principle established by UN Women and UN Global Compact, and representatives from the development and private sector.
Building on the momentum of Nepal’s 2025 Ring the Bell event, which spotlighted women’s financial inclusion and the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), the 2026 edition adopted a high-impact and action-oriented focus on Gender-Smart Finance. Anchored in the global theme “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls”, the event highlighted how gender-smart finance is a concrete pathway to realizing women’s economic rights, addressing structural inequalities, and translating commitments into measurable market action.
Lila Pieters Yahia, The UN Resident Coordinator, opened the event and delivered her welcome remarks where she focused on how the private sector is central to advancing gender equality and achieving the sustainable development goals. In her remarks, she said, “An important platform like ‘Ring the Bell’ must not remain a symbolic annual moment. It should catalyse a more structured and sustained platform that brings together government, the private sector, including financial and equity institutions and development partners, to advance women’s economic empowerment year-round. By institutionalising this dialogue, we can better align policy, unlock gender-smart investments, and ensure that commitments translate into measurable progress for women across Nepal.”
Her remarks were followed by the Ring the Bell ceremony to signify commitment of the private sector to gender equality and financial inclusion, which is a symbolic pledge for just and prosperous economies.
The CEO of the Nepal Stock Exchange, Choodamani Chapagain, gave his opening remarks where he gave a brief overview of women’s participation in the stock market of Nepal and highlighted how even though there was ample women participation, there was huge gender imbalance in leadership, decision making and board composition. He said, “Inclusion is the engine of a stable market; when women lead, the nation prospers.”
Keynote remarks were delivered by Govind Ghimire, CEO of NMB Bank. In last year’s Ring the Bell Ceremony, NMB Bank had received the WEP award for their outstanding efforts in advancing gender inclusion. Ghimire highlighted how his bank had been making efforts to be more gender-inclusive, not just in theory but in practice. He called on other counterparts in the business world to collaborate in the WEP initiative saying, “let’s walk the talk, it is easy to talk about philosophy but action is more important and harder.”
A session on Leveraging WEPs to drive Gender Equality in the Private Sector was given. Patricia Fernandez Pacheco, Country Representative of UN Women Nepal, set the context for the topic building on WEPs framework. She stressed on how when women are locked out of finance, the economy loses. “Closing the financing gap isn’t just equality, it’s smart economics. Let’s invest in gender-responsive financing,” she said.
In the session, representatives from two WEP signatories Aarju Joshi from F1Soft International Pvt Ltd and Manish Thapa from Global Equity Fund Nepal also presented their insights and experience of adopting WEPS in their company. Pacheco also welcomed two new WEP signatories — U-turn Nepal, an event management company and Hotel Himalaya – who took their WEP pledges during the session.
At the event, representatives from public and private sectors hosted a panel discussion on “Unlocking Gender-Smart Capital: Blended Finance for Women-Led Businesses”. Panelists, Manoj Poudel, Founder and Chair of Aadhyanta Fund Management Limited, Cecile Riviere, First Secretary and Programme Manager of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Sushma Sharma, Founder/CEO of Phool Prasad and Meena Pandey, Director of Nepal Rastra Bank discussed key opportunities and challenges to deliver gender smart finance to women.
The EU Ambassador to Nepal, Veronique Lorenzo, concluded the event and said, “Women’s economic empowerment is not just the right thing to do, it is the right business decision to make for private businesses and financial institutions who want to grow and to contribute to the national agenda of jobs and growth.”
Samir Thapa, President of Global Compact Nepal, wrapped up the event and highlighted the need for stronger public-private partnerships as the next step. The event concluded with the reinforcement of closing the MSME financing gap and aligning policy, capital, and market incentive, changing mindset in every corporate structure to realize that including women and giving them equal opportunity is good business and not just a social good, investing in women to get from participation to leadership while scaling up women’s access to finance, and creating a positive eco-system that is supportive of women entrepreneurs.
