The Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), in partnership with UN Women, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Global Compact Network Kenya, hosted the 2026 Ring the Bell for Gender Equality ceremony. Held at the Radisson Blu Hotel under the theme “Rights. Justice. Action. For All Women and Girls,” the event urged the private sector to move beyond awareness toward measurable accountability in closing gender gaps within Kenya’s corporate sector.
Opening the ceremony, Lucy Kamar-Chepkurui, Head of Talent at the NSE, highlighted the economic stakes of the initiative. “We are no longer in an era where awareness is enough. We are in the era of accountability,” she said. “We are not just ringing a bell for social justice; we are ringing it for the health and sustainability of a KSh 3.4 trillion market,” she added, citing the exchange’s market capitalization.
The ceremony emphasized the slow pace of global progress, noting that women currently enjoy only 64 percent of the legal rights available to men. At the current rate, it could take an estimated 286 years to achieve full equality.
UN Women Kenya Country Representative Antonia N’Gabala-Sodonon called for structural change over broad pledges. “If we are serious about advancing rights, justice and action, we must move from general commitments to concrete, measurable actions that can be tracked and reported,” she stated.
A key milestone of the event was Ecobank Kenya Limited and Kenya Bixa Ltd officially signing the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs). They join 167 other Kenyan signatories and over 12,000 companies globally committed to promoting gender equality across the workplace and marketplace.
The “Ring the Bell” initiative is a global movement marked annually by stock exchanges worldwide to promote women’s economic empowerment. The 2026 Kenyan ceremony concluded with a call for the private sector to translate these symbolic gestures into deliberate, year-long actions.
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