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. “