Bali, 12 November 2022 – As the largest network of social investors across Asia-Pacific, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network – AVPN, is committed to strategically mobilize capital to create and scale transformative impact. Through its growing policy engagement work, AVPN actively brings the social investor community’s voice to policymakers and furthers cross-sectoral collaboration.
At an official B20 side event on November 12, designed to amplify the voices of the social investment community in the final run-up to the G20, AVPN announced the following commitments:
- A USD 25 million Asia Gender Equality Pooled Fund with support from Fondation CHANEL, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The Target Foundation and members of AVPN’s Asia Gender Network which will invest in women’s economic empowerment across the Asia Pacific region.
- USD 3M Sustainability Seed Fund, with support from Google.org and Asian Development Bank, launched to combat climate change and drive sustainability through technology in the Asia Pacific.
- A strategic partnership with the Global Blended Finance Alliance to catalyse the growth of blended finance in Asia.
- The launch of a dedicated Gender focused MSME TaskForce, supported by Visa Foundation that will make recommendations to governments on how to support and grow women led and women focused businesses across the Asia Pacific region.
- The launch of an initiative to promote Principles for Gender Lens Giving in partnership with the Asia Gender Network (AGN) and UN Women, across the entire community of social investors in Asia.
- Contributions to elevating the voice of the Global South in G20 and other global fora through the Global South Impact Community in partnership with IVPC and sister networks AVPA (Africa), Latimpacto (Latin America) and EVPA (Europe).
On the occasion, Naina Subberwal Batra, Chief Executive of AVPN, shared, “AVPN is proud to be the official Impact Partner of G20 Indonesia, and I pay tribute to the excellent work of the Indonesian government in putting social issues front and centre of the G20. At AVPN, we will continue to mobilise the support of our community of more than 600 members to support this agenda and maintain the momentum as the baton passes to India, Brazil, and South Africa in the coming years.”
As emerging economies recover from COVID-19, many of the advances that had previously been made around poverty reduction and gender equality have been reversed, and this is now compounded by growing food security and energy access issues. It is only through collective action that empower global south leaders to come to the fore in identifying solutions that we can meet the enormity of these challenges. The Indonesian Presidency is putting a lot of effort into making sure that its policy discussions and recommendations meet the needs of the most vulnerable communities in the Global South that are not being met. The Indonesian Presidency is making sure that as economies recover, communities that were hardest hit by the pandemic are not left behind. They are doing this by fostering collaboration that leads to action across the Asia Pacific region.
Minister of Tourism and the Creative Economy of the Republic of Indonesia, Sandiaga Uno said, “it is important for governments to work with AVPN’s social investment community and to reach key development goals in areas like energy transition, global health architecture, and digital transformation. We also need to start thinking about innovative instruments, including blended finance, impact investing, and strategic philanthropy, to meet the needs of supporting a transition to net zero.” “We try to apply blended finance to the development of integrated and sustainable tourism. We believe that financing is channelled with the main objective of meeting development needs that do not solely expect a return on capital.” added the Minister.
Former Senior Minister, Professor Bambang Brodjonegoro, who is also the Lead Co-Chair of the T20 – an ideas bank for the G20 within the Indonesian Government, will say: “The conclusion of T20 has very much been aligned with the concepts of catalytic finance, blended finance, and the key role philanthropy has to play in ensuring sustainable development; this is a key message advocated by AVPN. We are doing our best to take forward these key recommendations around sustainable finance and philanthropy’s important role in the discussions at the upcoming Leaders’ Summit.”
Financing a just and inclusive future will require new models that can steer investment capital towards high impact, long-term, and sustainable solutions, and blended finance is an approach that has been widely supported and advocated for during the Indonesian Presidency. Cherie Nursalim, Co-founder of the United in Diversity Foundation and THK Forum, shared, “United in Diversity Foundation (UID), as secretariat to the Tri Hita Karana Forum on Future Knowledge and Blended Finance, has worked closely with AVPN under the G20 Indonesian Presidency to strengthen the blended finance ecosystem and landscape, to address the SDG financing gap and enable sustainable development. UID is pleased to have established a formal partnership with AVPN to take our collaboration forward and continue our work in support of the Global Blended Finance Alliance acknowledged by G20 countries to be established and to maintain and operationalise the G20 Principles for Scaling-Up Private and Blended Finance in Developing Countries, Least Developed Countries, and Small Island Developing States.”
Haje Schütte, Head of Finance for Sustainable Development, OECD Development Co-operation Directorate, shared, “The G20 Principles have been developed through extensive consultations, conducted by the OECD at the request of Indonesia’s G20 Presidency, with developing countries, the private sector, and foundations. AVPN has facilitated consultations with Asian foundations that have brought forward valuable insights into the practices and opportunities provided by blended finance approaches in Southeast Asia. These insights have also fed into the OECD G20 Stocktake report on the G20 Blended Finance Principles, which has been published.”
The advancement of digital technology has also become an important factor in social and economic development, including philanthropy. Ryan Rahardjo, Public Affairs Lead, for Southeast Asia, Google APAC shared, “The B20 engagement group has been playing a key role in bringing together business leaders globally to position sustainability and climate change action at the heart of business strategy. At Google, we firmly believe in the power of digital technologies to address the world’s pressing issues while advancing sustainable development. We’re very proud to share that AVPN will lead the $3m Google.org grant via an open call for nonprofits across Asia Pacific. Successful organisations that bring innovative tech-based solutions to sustainability challenges will receive grants, technology, and Google volunteers to help scale and further test their solutions. We are proud to see that this fund is also supported by the Asian Development Bank,” Added Ryan.
A key focus area of the AVPN community is working towards achieving gender equality in the region. At the event, Jamshed M. Kazi, UN Women Indonesia Representative and Liaison to ASEAN emphasised that the launch of AVPN Principles for Gender Lens Giving is very timely, as G20 member countries are committed to galvanize support from philanthropy and social investors to leverage resources to achieve gender equality. He further referred to a complementary framework, the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) that has more than 7000 private sector CEO signatories. He added “Joining forces, both UN Women and Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) and the Principles of Gender Lens Giving are the game changers in influencing the landscape of financing on gender equality and women’s empowerment in the region. Both India and Indonesia are well developed markets and ideally positioned to further influence philanthropy and gender lens investing, as Indonesia hands over the G20 Presidency to India”.
To close the session, Maya Juwita, Executive Director, Business Coalition for Women Empowerment, shared, “B20 Indonesia has established the One Global Women Empowerment (OGWE) platform, with the goal being to establish a permanent body supported a secretariat and technology that will connect relevant stakeholders and provide for real-time best practices to accelerate the impactful inclusion of women and women-led businesses in the global economy. OGWE has 5 key objectives: knowledge sharing, digital capability, funding and investment, technical support, and supportive policies. We have had 28 companies and institutions pledge to support OGWE, including AVPN. AVPN has pledged through OGWE to support the funding and investment objective, through commitment of their USD 25 mil Asia Gender Equality Fund. “
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About AVPN.
AVPN is the world’s largest network of Social Investors in Asia, with over 600+ diverse members across 33 markets. Their mission is to close the SDG gaps in Asia, by enabling their members to increase the flow of financial, human, and intellectual capital towards impact. Through sharing knowledge and innovating collaborations between policy makers, family offices, foundations, and the private sector, AVPN improves the effectiveness of capital deployed; bringing to bear the local field needs, regional expertise, and policy insights. As organizers of the AVPN Global Conference—the world’s largest networking event for Social Investors in Asia—their focus is to put Asian voices at the forefront of global discourse; with the output of the convening to be added to the main agenda of the upcoming G20. The event is also leveraged by the Social Investor ecosystem to form and announce new partnerships, innovate catalytic funding vehicles, and share best practices that ultimately move more capital towards impact.
About the B20 side event.
As Impact Partner of the G20 Indonesian Presidency, AVPN is hosting an invite only G20 AVPN Community Engagement Event on 12th November 2022. The event is an official B20 Side Event and is designed to amplify the voice of the social investment community in G20 deliberations in the run up to the final G20 Leaders’ Summit on 15th and 16th November and highlight how the AVPN community can be mobilised to contribute to the G20 impact agenda. A key objective of the event will be for the AVPN community to come together and explore how the collective strength of almost 600 organisations could support G20 priorities through more strategic collaboration to bring transformative impact. The event will be an opportunity to deliberate on the progress and commitments AVPN and our members have made on G20 priority areas.
About the AVPN Pledge.
Over 50 social impact organisations have signed up to make a commitment to supporting AVPN’s G20 work. As we look ahead to the G20 Indian Presidency and beyond, AVPN is making a commitment to:
- Represent the Asian social investment voice in G20
- Drive sustainable and transformative impact forward in G20
- Mobilize capital and resources towards impact in Asia through the G20 platform, with a special focus on Climate Action, Gender Equality, Young People, Strengthening Health Systems and Sustainable Finance
About the G20.
The G20 is a strategic multilateral platform connecting the world’s major developed and emerging economies. The G20 holds a strategic role in securing future global economic growth and prosperity. Together, the G20 members represent more than 80 percent of world GDP, 75 percent of international trade and 60 percent of the world population. Starting in 1999 as a meeting for the finance minister and central bank governors, the G20 has evolved into a yearly summit involving the Head of State and Government. In addition to that, the Sherpa meetings (in charge of carrying out negotiations and building consensus among Leaders), working groups, and special events are also organized throughout the year.
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