More climate philanthropies considering South-east Asia expansion
Wong Pei Ting
MORE major philanthropies plan to expand into South-east Asia than other parts of the Asia-Pacific, raising the prospect for charities to catalyse climate action in the region, a new report showed.
The study by the World Economic Forum’s Giving to Amplify Earth Action initiative, Temasek Trust-backed Philanthropy Asia Alliance, and San Francisco’s ClimateWorks Foundation surveyed 24 global and Asia-based philanthropies. These 24 players collectively granted more than US$3.7 billion in 2022, including at least US$1.9 billion to climate and nature globally and US$580 million to climate and nature in Asia. Nearly three in four funders are already working on philanthropic public-private partnerships (PPPPs).
The findings suggested that although the Philippines is a country where half of those 24 surveyed are already operating, it has growing backers – two more philanthropies are considering expanding to the country in the next five years.
And while Cambodia is one of the laggards in the region, with only five operating there currently, it managed to get heads turning, with two funders indicating interest to expand there in the next five years.
Indonesia remains the top destination for the philanthropies currently. Three in four already have a presence there, and no new funders are looking in its direction.
“As ambition grows in Asia, the opportunity is now to strengthen philanthropy’s scope,” said the report, which was launched on the sidelines of the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28) on Sunday (Dec 3).
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“PPPPs can come together to strategise and fund, multiply money, and allow philanthropic funds to be the ignitor and the biggest return on the catalytic dollar...There is strong belief that climate and nature have the potential to unite civil society and the private and public sectors to build a common agenda.”
Food and agri, the new ‘renewables’?
The up-and-coming sector is food and agriculture decarbonisation. Eleven funders are in it currently, and three more have indicated that they are looking to move into it in the next five years. This puts the sector on track to match the interest in renewable energy and innovations that “fight dirty energy” in the near future.
Conservation, with four funders currently, is another sector seeing interest from three more funders that’s looking to move into it in the next five years.
These findings show a growing interest in expansion plans in the areas of adaptation and resilience, as well as nature-related programmes, the report said.
Recipe for success
The report identified four key characteristics of successful PPPPs.
The first highlighted the importance of aligning system-wide strategy and values, because it is a complex process to bring together multi-sector partners. Active discussions need to be complemented by “intentional decisions” taken on structure, sequencing and the staging of projects, and this would require strong leadership and clear agreement on roles and responsibilities, it added.
The second was building “win-win-win” collaborations at scale. When partners understand shared goals and motivations, they can co-create projects that help each other, and let the PPPP thrive, the report said.
The third characteristic is that PPPPs should adopt innovative financing approaches. The report said philanthropic capital may be convinced to come to de-risk projects as first loss capital where needed, but the private sector can support the next part of the capital stake when projects become bankable and commercially viable since “philanthropic funds are not unlimited”.
Finally, people-centric capacity and capability building is a must. Noting that projects should put people at the centre of building PPPPs to successfully identify, retain and engage talent, the report said: “The best partnerships include efforts to engage communities at every turn, and with practical communication, stakeholders can operationalise and drive change.”
Seok Hui Lim, chief executive officer of Philanthropy Asia Alliance, said the hope is for the report to serve as “a catalyst to deeper involvement and collaboration of partners from across the philanthropic, public, and private sectors to exchange knowledge and mobilise capital in a meaningful way in Asia”.
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