Advancing Inclusive Prosperity through Philanthropy–Multilateral Partnerships (HLPF 2026 Side Event)

Well, colleagues, we're going to now begin our side event, Executive Secretary Alicia Bana.
Excellencies, colleagues, good afternoon and it's an absolute pleasure to welcome you to today's side event, which we are organizing on the margins of high level political forum 2026 on advancing inclusive prosperity through philanthropy multilateral partnerships.
My name is Maria Cipuna and I lead on External relations in the Office of the UN Secretary-General.
As you can see, I will be your moderator for today's discussion.
We have a true power panel here with us today with representatives from member states, the United Nations system, philanthropy organizations, and also international financial institutions and colleagues, thank you so much to all of you for joining us today for this very exciting discussion, which actually shows that partnerships are no longer optional.
They are essential to how we do development, how we ensure that we deliver for impact and for results, and that we generate long term impact.
To begin the program, I have the pleasure of inviting Under Secretary-General Ali bana, Executive Secretary of the United Nations, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific to deliver her opening remarks.
Executive Sectary, the floor is yours.
Thank you very much, Maria.
A very good afternoon to Excellency's, distinguished participants, colleagues and friends.
Welcome to today's side event on Advancing inclusive prosperity through Philanthropy Multilateral Partnership.
We are very pleased to co organize this event with the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the Institute of Philanthropy.
At SCAP, we have been engaging with philanthropist and private sector foundation in multiple ways.
Indeed, they have been our donors and collaborators spanning various areas of work in advancing sustainable development in particular in our region, Asia Pacific in topics such as inclusive business, trade investment, energy transition, and many more.
In February this year, we hosted a dialogue on the sidelines of the 13th Asia Pacific Forum on sustainable development, that is the regional Forum on sustainable development to discuss the future of sustainable development, which brought together consolidated regional perspective, progress, and priorities into the global review of the 2030 agenda at HLPF.
Our dialogue reaffirm a set of key points on the roles that I mean, broadly, UN or development partners, including SCAP and philanthropies could play to enhance cooperation for sustainable development.
From our perspective, our role is to serve as a trusted and neutral convenor creating enabling conditions for dialogue alignment and collective action.
We facilitate regular and structured exchanges, including among philanthropic actors and provides platform for knowledge sharing and transfer, notably through South South and Triangle Cooperation.
It also supports the identification and incubation of thematic initiative with the potential to be skilled across the region, helping to translate dialogue into tangible system level outcome.
From the perspective of philanthropy, their role is also evolving in significant and constructive ways.
Philanthropic actors are increasingly contributing data, evidence, and forward looking insights, for example, on the changing global financial landscape as well as other issues.
They are helping to strengthen coherence between development programming and broader economic and investment priorities while playing a catalytic role in fostering innovation.
This includes supporting the development, testing, and scaling of new approaches and business models that can complement and enhance the impact of multilateral efforts.
In this regard, both ESCAP and philanthropies bring unique institutional structure and expertise to the table.
The broad conclusion of our dialogue so far is to take the time to discuss and identify the mechanism through which initiative of common priory can be co created.
Today's event is a natural continuation of this discussion.
Furthermore, for countries in our region, many are very much interested in learning about innovation, good practices, and proven methods from each other through South South cooperation or so called peer learning, and targeted technical assistance in areas where they lack expertise.
In this regard, we work as facilitator of these areas of our competence.
This moment also reflects a broader transformation in the development landscape marked by a growing diversity of actors, more complex financing models, and deeper cross sector collaboration.
The shift is not only inevitable but increasingly central to how development is conceived and delivered for member states across our region.
In today's side event, I encourage you to share your feedback and opinions openly.
Look forward to your insight as we discuss the challenges we face, as well as the opportunities before us and how we can further work together.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you, Executive Secretary for such a thought provoking introduction.
And I now have the pleasure of introducing His Excellency, Mr.
Raashd Al Mahmoud Tutuir, advisor to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on finance and planning to deliver his opening remarks.
Thank you.
Thank you, miss Moderator.
Thank you, Executive Secretary, distinguished organizers, honorable participants.
Bangladesh welcomes this timely conversation on how philanthropy and multilateral partnership can advance inclusive prosperity.
This is particularly important at a time when we are off track in our SDC implementation.
Philanthropy can be a useful vehicle to reach our destination if we want to trust in whole of the society approach.
I will touch upon three contextual reality, and I will come up with three suggestions for advancement of the initiative that UNSCP and the UN Secretary-General Executive Office has in mind.
First, we have a es tradition, but they are unsung heroes.
If you really look at the development that we have witnessed over the years in achievements of education, particularly, you would see how the collective actions has contributed in building the infrastructure of education, particularly in Bangladesh and in South Asia and many other places.
Because it's the collective action, not through public money, but private contribution.
They have made it possible in terms of having primary schools, high schools, secondary institutions.
We hardly talk about them.
But these are people, ordinary citizens who have contributed and made these available.
So this is an avenue that we must really recognize in order to have a whole of the society approach because this brings ownership.
This helps us in advancing to having an inclusive process.
Because there are plenty of examples in Indian subcontinent, to many places where citizens have contributed in building these educational institutions.
But hardly they are recognized.
Particularly in modernization literature.
So let's really recognize the contributions of millions and billions of people in setting up these public institutions.
Secondly, we consider public sector as an important vehicle in terms of providing public goods.
But equally, it is important to have recognize the role of the private sector because they are the engine of growth in most of the developing countries.
How do we bring them in partnership as disease and related issues? That's a quite an important issue that we must explore and come up with processes.
I understand this is one of the reasons to host this dialogue.
Equally, we see an unequal world.
During COVID, when his disease goals were regressing, then we have seen multinational corporation amazing huge amount of windfall profits.
There are a lot of discussion and we all understand there are many ways through which there are unequal societies dividing inequality, and that has not helped us in achieving SDC.
How do we really have participation of private sector into development? They are already contributing because they are creating jobs.
But equally, how do we create a system in which they also contribute and in terms of having a transparent process which can help us reduce inequality? There are innovations like CSRs, but we need to have more.
And if you really look at, we see plenty of magazines which really celebrates this wealth generation, which is fine, fair enough.
But what is also equally important is to really how these can contribute to the development processes.
And the third one, which is really important because as we are in this current landscape, we need to really talk about, yes, national governments can come up with processes through which private sector can contribute in different processes, including the fiscal incentives.
But as we are embarking on a transitional fluidity and while multilateralism is at stake in some areas, how do we really make sure that these transnational corporations, and there is a role for multilateral organizations like UN, as well as in the geographic regions, these commissions.
They have the convening power to really bring them into the development processes.
Now I'll finish by proposing three initiatives that UN ECAP and other geographical commissions, economic and social commissions do because as we know, a lot of development discussion originated from the regional commissions, and they have a race history.
There are many UN bodies were set up because of the recommendations coming from these economic and social commissions.
So US CCAP can lead the process in terms of three areas where we can work on.
So the first one is obviously, it has to be aligned with the national priorities and national strategies.
And from Bangladesh side, we have this five year strategic framework where we are providing different incentives so that the private sector can join as a part of the inclusive process, as a part of the whole of the society appros and we have come up with different fiscal incentives so that the private sector can contribute not only through their CSR, but beyond that in terms of academy industry collaboration and many other processes.
But definitely that we can learn from the processes from other countries because peer to peer learning can help us realize more.
That's one.
The second one and relating to how do we synergize the convening power of multilateral organizations and philanthropic initiatives together.
Because both we all agree that we want to see an inclusive society.
We want to see that inequality isn't widened, rather request while we could achieve his disease.
So there could be many there could be task force and others because we can't national government can't really do in a society where there are other initiatives of UN where we have seen that tax initiatives and other areas.
So we need to really harness that convening power of both global level as well as the regional level.
And the third one, which is really important, and there we need governance reforms.
Because the transactions have to be transparent, accountable, and tangible because we lack that.
And there are as you know, that because of the tax avoidance, if we could harness the amount of tax tax exemption, that could help the SDG shipment a lot.
But unfortunately, we are not being able to walk the talk.
And finally, we must, and I will end by that point.
This is not about shading responsibilities.
Because what we have seen in the name of innovative finance, in the name of private sector, the role, which is even 0.7% of the G&I has not been performed by many countries.
So this is not an alternative to that.
This is an additional to that.
And we have seen how those unkept promises, particularly I'm coming from a country because of this Middle East conflict, because the government is accountable to the people, we can't adjust to oil prices as an economist would suggest.
We have to count up to 30th June, $3.46 billion additional cost.
But I don't see any movement in multilateral framework.
And that's where our task is.
We need to act because this is not our fault, but the citizens of Bangladesh had to endure that 3.46 billion which is equivalent to no League, almost the size of a IMF program.
So more debt, more cost, and more uncertainties.
I'm sure here I have colleagues across the continents coming from different countries and different continents would really also work on those areas.
How can we really work when there are uncertainties, when there are regression in SDs and not words, not oats.
Not should but shall.
Let us act.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Your Excellency, thank you for those incredible chable and also action oriented proposals, which I may say in this early afternoon hour really felt like a double shot of espresso Thank you for this.
I don't have any double shot.
I very much look forward to So to set the context for our in depth discussion, I'm very happy to invite the co organizer of this side event and Secretary-General and a good friend, I would say, Brian Son of the Institute of Philanthropy.
Institute of Philanthropy is Hong Kong based ink Fund do Tank and it's dedicated to strengthening the philanthropic system, especially in the Asia Pacific region.
It also works a lot with the Commission on Asian philanthropy.
Brian and I have often found ourselves part of the same conversations on how to make philanthropy stronger how to make our partnership between philanthropy and multilaterals better, much more action oriented, and also how to make sure what is being done.
This also goes back to the points His Excellency Tuture was referring to.
We do have strong country level implementation and partnerships and how we can further strengthen them.
Today, Brian will share key insights and reflections on the evolving ecosystem in his region and how it's advancing inclusive prosperity.
Brian, welcome to New York.
Thank you so much for joining us in person.
Over to you.
Thank you so much.
Maria, and thank you so much, Executive Secretary, your excellencies and your Excellencies, it's wonderful to be here.
We did not sync up with His Excellency Tutimre just now, but you will see uncanny alignment in what I'm about to share.
As Marina mentioned, so I'm the Institute of Philanthropy.
We were set up by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
For those of you who may not be familiar, the Jockey Club is the largest philanthropic foundation in Asia in terms of annual giving.
It is a public lottery funder, runs a Hong Kong horse racing and sports wagering.
The club's mandate is to be a local funder, and so where we come from, our institute is really to make impact internationally beyond the shores of Hong Kong and really on a regional and global scale.
We are here with our colleagues from the Asia Philanthropy Congress, my good friend Masato Seco.
The Congress was established by the Nippon Foundation, which was by volume, the next largest philanthropic foundation in Asia.
Together, we have put together this commission on Asian philanthropy and biology and a few friends here as well to help us understand the full scale of what Asian philanthropy is about, how it can contribute more, how it can work better with public sector, with multilaterals.
What I wanted to do today was to give a very brief introduction to our work.
Um, what I would say is the source material is maybe Asian, but the learnings are definitely global and looking forward to really enriching conversation today.
But first, let me share some context, and I have the benefit of a few visual aids today.
Asia, where a lot of our work is based is home to 60% of the world's population.
We count Asia from the near East to the far East, so we say Sowest Asia to Japan.
It is a tremendous.
It has tremendous and increasingly demanding social needs.
I won't list them all.
But it is also a region that has significant and growing wealth.
We see it as a place that has growing wealth on one hand and tremendous and growing needs on the other.
Our question really is, how do these come together to make greater impact? Which leads us to this great effort that we've put together called the Commission on Asian Philanthropy, which is an effort to reimagine what the future of Asian philanthropy should look like in this particular time with all the challenges that we face.
And together with the Asian Philanthropy Congress, we have brought together 13 of Asia's most influential foundations, Hong Kong Jockey Club, Nippon Foundation, the Tamask Foundation of Singapore, King Khaled Foundation, Earth Sayed, Tata and Paramal, Tencent, Yazan Hasana, Kseknai a few more.
Essentially the leading domestic players in their jurisdiction that are able to rally the rest of their jurisdictions as well.
There are a few things that I wanted to share about what we found.
First, when we speak about just a little bit of context when we speak about Asian philanthropy, it is non monolithic.
If anything, it is defined by being very diverse and pluralistic.
Let me share just a few examples of what we see come out in the different jurisdictions.
If I start from Japan on the right, Japan, the first to industrialize and a longer time frame for building wealth, and like many countries, the population is aging.
And so one of the biggest opportunities for growth in philanthropy and therefore for us to think about is sequestered wealth in dormant accounts and dormant assets from the age population as one of the key growth areas and potential for philanthropy.
Very similar to what you see in the likes of the UK, which has done that and tapped into dormant accounts from big society capital.
Next, we have China and India.
For both of them, as E was saying and very common across Asia, one thing they share is a belief towards a move towards much more inclusive societies as a main national goal, common prosperity in China, fixed power in India.
In that, philanthropy has a role to play in national development goals, and that's something that is a very explicit goal that philanthropy has.
In China, much of the philanthropy being corporate, for example, very strong alignment with national priorities, and corporates play a major role.
In India, with the advent of the CSR law where 2% of income must go towards CSR, increasingly towards these areas of major national priorities.
Moving west to Middle East to West Asia, we find that a different form of giving, faith based giving is what plays such a strong role, Sakatf and the different forms of Islamic giving.
Moving to Southeast Asia, where I think many of our excellencies here from, all of these types come together, community, faith based, corporate.
Lastly, with the financial hubs, Hong Kong and Singapore, likes of UAE, wealth concentration into family offices, family foundations, and that is driving a lot of innovation and risk capital from that side.
When you see you have this great geographical diversity, but when we put together, we find that there is not one model of philanthropy, but five main typologies.
On this point, I just want to I have three points on this page for our further discussion and reflection for the rest of today.
We have the five types community led, faith based, state led, corporate led philanthropy, including CSR, and business family led.
And so my first point is that recognizing these different models, each of these models has different objectives, different goals, different constraints.
And so when we think of multilateral partnerships of how philanthropy can work better with the UN, with multilateral development banks, et cetera, government, public sector, that looks very, very different depending on the type of model.
Partnering with a community foundation, partnering with Zakat institution, very different to a high net worth, different speed, different constraints, but very, very types of different assets.
And so we should take advantage of the different types of assets that they bring.
Which leads me to my second point.
If you look on the left, you'll see that under each of the models, it lists that the capabilities that the model brings, which are non monetary, often, that is equally if not more valuable than the money itself.
If I take faith based giving and actually the whole faith based giving architecture, in Indonesia, during COVID, the government partnered with the faith institutions, went through the mosque for vaccine distribution and delivery, and achieved a much more rapid rollout in weeks.
That was the trusted last mile delivery of the community and the faith based architecture that enabled that, not the money.
Take China.
One of the biggest growth areas in Chinese philanthropy in the billions of dollars over the past decade has been the trend towards the mass digitization of giving.
Companies like ten cent, their contribution to philanthropy is not their balance sheet, it is not their CSR, but actually the usage of their tech platform, their corporate assets, how ten cent has used the entire WeChat messaging ecosystem to gamify giving, to encourage mass participation in the billions and billions of dollars, exactly as Axin saying, really, this whole of society community approach to giving and encouraging a lot more participation.
Take India, lifting over 37 million out of poverty in Bihar state alone through self help groups, which are seeded by our friends at the World Bank and this Indian state entity of uvica and philanthropy together, creating these self help groups which enable much more efficient last mile distribution, changing how rural women access credit and really lowering the cost of delivery.
As we think about these partnerships, I would encourage us to think today of not just the money, but these vast capabilities that these networks bring as well.
Which leads me to my third point on the right and I wanted to share is actually the relative scale of philanthropy.
Sometimes there is a temptation to think of philanthropy as the private foundations, which are very important.
A lot of our research on the numbers, and I can't officially share these numbers yet as we're still finalizing, we will publish in September, but some of the early indications, one thing we find in Asia, for example, is that ultra high net worth foundations, actually less than 5% of giving by volume, less than 5%.
Mass individual giving exactly as it was saying, the community, that's over half over 50% is mass individual through community through faith based giving.
Corporate, 24, 25%.
So when you think of the major movers, it is in the community giving, it is in the faith based giving, it is in the corporate giving.
And when we think about partnerships, it's that scale that we really want to bring to the table.
And just my last page and a lot of our aim today is, how do we increase both the quantity as well as the quality of capital? A lot of our work with this Commission Nation philanropy increasing the quantity is finding what we call these billion dollar ideas that have shifted philanthropy in the billions of dollars in one jurisdiction in one member state and how they might be able to be transferable in some way, shape, or form to others, whether that is mass digitalization in China, whether that has been the experience with the CSR law in India, or whether that has been institutionalization of Saccad giving in the likes of Indonesia, fantastic initiatives, not perfect by any means, but ripe lessons for us to think about how the total pool quantity of philanthropy can increase.
After that, it's about quality.
How do these through these capabilities, these non monetary capabilities, often much more valuable, lead to faster, better, cheaper outcomes, lead to better involvement of different community actors and this whole society approach.
That really is the focus of our work.
That's what keeps us busy and thought that wanted to share that as a conversation starter for today.
Thank you so much once again and really looking forward to the rest of the discussion.
Thank you.
Brian, thank you so much for sharing this knowledge, room by room, country by country.
I think it's extremely important and also those great ideas as to how we can increase philanthropic giving in terms of both quantity and also quality, making it not just acupuncture point for our societies, but a much stronger actor in the overall development architecture.
I do think that presentations like this help us build longer tables like this one, not just Herbal.
It's very important.
This is also what our panel discussion would be about today.
We have a fantastic power panel sitting around this table joining us with Ambassador Giorgio Marapodi, ambassador of Italy, Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mr.
Masato Secu, Senior Advisor, Asia Philanthropy, Congress, Mr.
Albert Van Fosse, Secretary-General Fonione Campagne de San Paolo, Maria Dmitrido, Special Representative of the World Bank to the United Nations, Mr.
Alvaro Diaz Duque, Deputy Director General of the Director for European Development Policies, Spain, and Ambassador Vdia Sadneviic, Deputy Permanent Representative of Indonesia to the United Nations.
I would now like us to shift from the Asian region to the European one and to start with a question to Ambassador Marapodi.
Ambassador, thank you, first of all, for joining us, and we would love to deep dive into the Italian Philanthropic Eco System and your vision on this.
To begin our discussion, the first question would be, Italy has a very well developed community foundation ecosystem with a lot of local philanthropic institutions that are helping both grant making, but also building hands on capacity when it comes to regional or local level development.
How do you see this shaping and what are your perspectives on this? Yes.
Thank you.
Well, let me say first that I found the discussion that we have had up to now very interesting, very inspiring, and actually very enriching.
These are always opportunity, I think, for all of us to learn something to learn more.
I would like to start saying even drawing from what I heard that the more and more I'm convinced that we need from our governments a generative approach, something that is really able to go beyond I would say not even not only the traditional recipes of systems a development cooperation because I think that these are not traditional anymore and we have had over the years, very very innovative approach.
We have tried to change what do we do to involve more and more actors.
But I think that this research has to go on has to continue because time is a the times we are living in are changing so fastly, so they require us to, um, to adapt to a capacity to adapt that we did not experience in the past.
But one lesson is that government alone, we know that they cannot deliver that transformation, that transformation which is required for the achievement of the SDG because what we need is not only financing, but it's a stronger ecosystem of partnership built around trust, shared responsibilities, and local leadership.
Italy believes that philanthropy can play a catalytic role, not as a substitute for public development cooperation.
I want to reassure my friend from Bangladesia we the goal of the 0.7% is always there, and we all We hope that we can achieve that once, Italy is a strategic partner capable of mobilizing additional resources, fostering innovation, strengthening institutions, and the scaling up solutions with lasting impact.
Our experience with community foundations offer offer one important lessons and the most successful partnership are those that start from places rather than projects.
Community foundations do not simply provide grants.
They bring together local authorities, a civil society organization, business and citizens around shared priorities while investing in local capacity and institutions over time.
The strength lies not only mobilizing financial resources, but immobilizing relationships.
And you were mentioning, yes, the multilateral system.
I think that for multilateral institutions, I believe that this approach, the Italian approach can bring an important message.
Local ownership cannot be treated as a procedural requirement or a box to tick.
It must become the organizing principle of partnership from their design to their implementation.
Sustainable solution emerge when communities are empowered to define priorities, build capacities, and lead change themselves.
We have seen some of these examples.
Savi, for example, the vaccine Alliance, to which Italy has been enthusiastic contributor since the very beginning, is bringing together governments, UN agencies, philanthropic foundations, the private sector, civil society.
They have shown how collective action can expand access to life savings to life saving services while strengthening national systems.
This is precisely why Italy continues to believe also in the central role of the United Nations as the platform where governments, philanthropy, international organizations, the private sector and civil society can work together under a common framework.
Many Many actors, many people too many times are talking of the funeral of the UN.
I think that this is still far away from us as the Secretary-General said many times, the United Nations were here and they will be here even after these critical times and also as President Mattera said, I mean, there is no alternative to the UN system.
Okay.
These days, I don't want to take too much time and in these days, Italy is also presenting the voluntary National Review.
Engaging young people, local authorities, and civil society.
We sought not only to report on SDG's implementation, but also what is our vision for the 2030 agenda itself.
For us, the participation is not merely a consultation exercise, but it is an essential component of effective governance and more sustainable development outcomes.
I conclude saying, if philanthropy and multilateralism are to deliver transformative generative results, they must move beyond financing individual initiatives and invest instead in institutions, local leadership, lasting partnership, as we are trying in some measure to do in African countries with our Math plan.
Sustainable development is ultimately built not project by project, but partnership by partnership, community by community, and I think that this is the approach that we are trying to implement.
As Italy, this is what we are trying to bring with our national review, and this is what we want to continue to explore also in the future.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Grats Emil, your excellency.
And thank you for pinpointing to the importance of trust in building those partnerships.
On this, I would very much welcome the vision of Masato Seco because as we can see, there's a lot when it comes to building those partnerships step by step.
But we also know that partnerships between multilateral institutions and the philanthropic ecosystem can sometimes be quite hard to actually build and collaboration is not as easy in practice.
What is your opinion on this and what can be done more? Thank you very much, first of all, very privileged and honored to be part of this conversation discussion.
I represent entity called Asia Philanthropy Congress, which is an annual convening that bring together Asian philanthropy leaders.
It's annual things in Japan that we convene.
As I mentioned by Brian earlier, we are also serving as a co convener to the Commission on Asian philanthropy and the details has been already been explained by Brian, so I will not go too much into details.
But responding to your question, I believe the greatest barrier to effective collaboration is that the strength and distinct nature of philanthropy are not always very poorly recognized by international organizations.
That leads to the absence of clear framework to bridge the fundamentally different nature of philanthropic capital and public development finance.
To understand how we can build this missing framework, it is important to look at philanthropic capital from two perspectives.
First is volume, and the second is nature.
So first on the volume of capital, philanthropy capital.
When we speak of philanthropy, we define it as private grants and charitable giving, distinct from market driven capital.
Today, commercial funding is entering the social sector through sustainable finance and impact investing, driven by corporations and institutional investors.
At the same time, international organization deployed vast resources through official development assistance and public finance.
Compared to these commercial funds and traditional ODA budget, philanthropy is small in terms of funding.
Well, the numbers vary depending on the study and the region, but philanthropy given generally ranges from 0.1% to 0.5% of GDP.
And even in the highest case, such as the United States, it reaches only about 2%.
So this means philanthropy is simply not meant to finance the large programs run by international organization.
With this relatively small volume, it operates on fundamentally different logic.
The second on the points of nature of this capital.
Philanthropy cannot match commercial capital or international organization in volume.
As I mentioned, the size is too small, but its true value lies on a completely different dimension.
The ability to take on risks, the markets and governments cannot.
So regular investments demands financial returns.
International organizations, on the other hand, operate under strict public mandate and rely on contribution from member states.
These institutions bear the responsibility of managing state resources, a public trust that demands high standard of fiducial duty, meaning they cannot afford to risk these funds on unproven models.
On top of that, when international organizations are bound by the core principle of universal equity to provide world balanced coverage across populations, philanthropy has the distinct flexibility to concentrate its resources on specific high risk interventions or absorb initial risks by taking a first loss position.
Importantly, this flexibility allows philanthropy to fund and establish a proof of concept where success is not initially guaranteed.
So in short, effective collaboration requires a structured framework that connect these distinct and complementary roles.
To effectively utilize philanthropic capital, the global dialogue should move beyond the mere rhetoric of filling financial gap to structurally integrating philanthropy's role based on its volume and distinct nature, as I mentioned earlier.
Establishing such a structured approach is exactly what is needed today.
And it is precisely why we are raising this issue through a committee commission that we are running with Institute of Philanthropy to ensure that philanthropic capital is strategically positioned within the global agenda, including discussion on the post SDGs.
So thank you very much.
Thank you, Masado, very insightful.
I think it really pinpoints to some of the pain points that we do have in some of our engagements.
Over to Alberto and Foster Secretary-General from Attorney Campania de San Paola.
Alberto, in your opinion, what does it actually take looking at a similar question, but from a different perspective to make our cooperation smooth and successful? Thank you.
Maria, Executive Secretary, Excellency, distinguished colleagues, I would like to start from a different angle to stress the fact that philanthropy can also be considered a further channel for dialogue and cooperation among states, and among private sector.
For example, when you are thinking about a new project or a new activity, philanthropy can be a further channel where you can create a common ground, for example, to find common projects in both countries in both territories and go beyond what is the first level of discussion, say.
What we are experiencing more and more is this paradigm of the four pieces, public, private, and philanthropic partnership, where, of course, you need clarity of roles for all the actors and what was mentioned in the opening remarks, the role that philanthropic can play in innovation, for example.
There, I think it's paradigmatic because there you can see the three basic tools that philanthropic Foundation can bring the table, grants, of course, money that is given away, investments, so we can use our endowment in a part of it with an expectation of maybe low returns, but with the impact return, and then competencies that can go to capacity building, as it's already been said.
As to the direct contribution of foundation, for example, in the innovation domain to develop ecosystems.
This is something that we are experiencing, for example, in our country and in our region in Piedmont and Trino.
Of course, foundation of specificities, it's already been said by other previous interventions in Europe, probably even more than in Asia, in the Pacific area where foundations are very old.
The company in San Paolo, for example, was founded in 15 63 in the Middle Ages, and we have a lot of legacy and there are different approaches in different countries and according to the constituency of the foundation, if it was created by a single individual or by a cooperation or by the government and so on.
Of course, we have to acknowledge that discuss and engage from the multilateral institutions with foundation can be very difficult because there is a fragmented ecosystem.
So I think that the the most important ingredient is the leverage effect.
The fact that the money that the foundation can put into a project or a common undertaking should create a leverage effect with an impact because, of course, The level of resources is negligible to get a direct effect on phenomena.
But if we can find together, partnering with these multilateral institutions, projects or processes, where the philanthropic money can enable a leverage effect, then it's way, I think the most effective way to deploy the philanthropic money.
To conclude, of course, as always, trust plays a very crucial role because the interaction with foundation, and I think also with multilateral institution must be a far reaching one.
So something that you have to build step by step and probably will bring the most, not in the first years, but in the long run.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Thank you, Alberto and thank you for reiterating this important word trust.
I would now like to turn to Maria World Bank.
World Bank has been mentioned already by Brian as one of the examples of some of the things that have been happening in partnership with philanthropy.
What would be very interesting for us is to hear more about the latest work of the World Bank on this topic, what you are doing with philanthropy to deliver more and better at country level, and also what have you been innovating and what is still work in progress.
Thank you so much, Maria, for giving me the floor and thank you to your colleagues and friends in the UN and also the Institute of Philanthropy for the kind invitation to contribute to this really important discussion.
Excellencies, dear colleagues.
I will add to the excellent remarks that we have heard so far on the development landscape, yes, it has changed.
We know public budgets and fiscal space is under pressure.
ODA is falling in many parts of the world while needs are growing.
But let me add another very important development challenge, that is not only a development challenge, social security and growth challenge.
That is that over the next ten to 15 years, 1.2 billion young people in emerging developing economies will be entering the labor market.
With current economic prospects, there are jobs for about 400 million.
This is a very important gap to close.
Our answer at the World Bank Group is organized around three pillars, investing in infrastructure, physical, and human, policy, governance and business enabling environment, and mobilizing private capital at scale through guarantees, risk sharing, equity, and other tools that bring investment where jobs can be created.
To deliver on this agenda at the urgency and scale that is needed, it's important more than ever to align policy, financing and partnerships, avoid fragmentation, focus on outcomes and work as a system as we heard.
We have heard very well from our colleagues on the nature, the volume, on the added value of philanthropy and I think it was very eloquently described by all previous colleagues.
What are we doing in the World Bank Group to shape our philanthropic engagement strategy accordingly to this needs reality, but also the complementarity of our strengths.
First, we are shifting from one of transactions towards strategic partnerships with philanthropy, building stronger relationships and bringing philanthropic partners in area to co create the design states so that priorities and delivery models are safe together.
That's the starting point.
Second, we are organizing collaboration around time bound, target focused missions and country platforms.
Our mission driven approach brings partners together around clear measurable goals anchored in country led compacts so that ambition and execution are safe together from day one.
You have heard about Mission 300, our initiative to provide access to electricity to 300 million people in Sub Saharan Africa, working with the African Development Bank.
Earlier this week, our water team here presenting water forward, where with other MTBs and our development partners, we aim to provide water security to over 1 billion people around the world.
These are all by 2030.
This is what I mean by mission driven approaches focused on country led compacts.
The third part of our strategy is that we are engaging philanthropy across the capital stack.
Philanthropic partners contribute through upstream technical assistance that helps build pipelines, catalytic risk bearing capital that can unlock investment, private investment, and ecosystem support that accelerates delivery.
This talks to all the modalities and typologies that we heard previously by Brian and Masato.
Philanthropic actors, from what we hear from our colleagues are asking not only where their money can be spent, but how their capital can unlock something larger.
Used well, philanthropy helps prepare the ground for investment, reduce risk, and mobilize much larger flows of public and private finance and much larger impact.
It goes way beyond the financing.
In terms of mission driven partnerships in practice, Mission 300 that I just mentioned is a very strong example.
It sets a bold, time bound target on providing access to electricity to 300 million people in Sub Saharan Africa, and to engage philanthropic partners, we have created multiple entry points from technical assistance accelerators that support government energy access programs to vehicles like Safhiri, which provides patient equity to companies that are advancing distributed renewable energy solutions across Africa.
And philanthropy has also helped deliver national energy compacts.
These are the country's own plans, these are their own plans, they are not bank documents.
So philanthropy has helped in the delivery of energy compacts by strengthening government delivery units and embeding technical fellows within ministries, talking about the broader support.
Instrument wise throughout the EcoS connect a little bit with what we have been discussing in New York, a lot has been discussed this year around the financing for development cycle on blended finance as a key instrument.
And where the World Bank Group, through our international finance corporation colleagues have contributed through our expertise and through our track record.
IFC has been at the forefront of blended finance for over two decades using concessional and increasingly philanthropic capital alongside our own financing to mobilize private investment in markets and in sectors where risk has historically been constrained in terms of commercial participation.
So what philanthropy has helped do is become They have become increasingly strategic partners and they have helped provide catalytic capital, technical assistance, and convening power to extend our reach and impact.
For us, scaling philanthropic engagement in planned finance is not about one of contributions, but rather partnerships that mobilize private capital at scale and create markets.
Um, Health was mentioned as an example.
Perhaps I can bring an example of agriculture where the global agriculture and food Security Program, private sector window, combined with philanthropic enabled blended finance with foundations like Gates has helped the risk agribusiness investments and Cowden IFC private capital at scale, and it follows a platform based approach to leverage investments over time.
So let me conclude because I'm conscious of time.
We know that this more strategic approach of engagement of the World Bank Group with philanthropic partners can work.
We focus on development outcomes together, we align our efforts, and we use our complementary strengths to multiply eventually not only financial resources, but our impact on the ground.
Thank you.
Thank you, Maria, for this in depth analysis and also very, very interesting examples.
Alvaro, in, in your work in Spain, in your work on development cooperation, where do you see philanthropy fitting in this overall equation? Thanks a lot for giving us the floor and thanks a lot to Gap and the Institute of philanthropy for what we believe is a really timing timely discussion.
Well, at the moment when countries face growing fiscal constraints, rising debt vulnerabilities, climate pleasures and widening development financing debt gaps, the question is no longer whether philanthropy has a role to play sustainable development, but how can we better leverage its unique strengths to effective partnerships with governments, multi other institutions, and local actors.
This is very much in line with the BN agreed at the fourth International Conference for Financing for Development.
Its and we believe that the Compromises Via recognizes the need to mobilize all sources of finance to build stronger partnerships across public, private, and philanthropic actors.
It also highlights the importance of catalytic capital innovation in collaboration with multilateral development banks to help close the SDG financing gap.
The latest OECD report on private philanthropy for development provides compelling evidence of the growing contribution that philanthropy can make.
2020-202823, sorry, philanthropic contributions to development amounted to $68.2 billion, which is equivalent to around 10% of total ODA during the same period.
The report also shows that philanthropy is particularly well placed to provide flexibility, take calculated risks, support innovation, and mobilize additional resources for sustainable development.
Spain particularly welcomes these findings as we are particularly encouraged to see that the report identifies Spain as the world's third largest philanthropic provider, largely reflecting the impact of Spanish philanthropic institutions working internationally.
One remarkable example is the BBUA Banco with Kia microfinance Co Foundation, which according to this OECD report, accounted for the most philanthropic flows to Latin America and the Caribbean, providing approximately $5 billion in financing 2020-2023.
This demonstrates how innovative philanthropic models can contribute to financial inclusion, entrepreneurship, and economic empowerment at scale.
Spain is also proud of the contribution of La Casa Foundation, one of the leading philanthropic organizations in Europe whose work in social inclusion, education, health, research, and international cooperation has generated insignificant impacts over many years.
At the same time, I would like to stress that Spanish philanthropy goes well beyond these well known institutions.
Spain benefits from a diverse and increasingly dynamic ecosystem of foundation, social investors, family foundations that are foundations, corporate foundations, and community based initiatives that are making important contributions both domestically and internationally.
This OECD report also points us toward some important priorities for action.
First, we should strengthen the catalytic role of philanthropy by expanding participation in blended finance and pool funding mechanisms capable of mobilizing additional public and private resources.
Second, we need to promote stronger partnerships between philanthropic actors and national or local institutions, ensuring that development efforts are increasingly locally led, locally owned.
Third, we should support a greater collaboration between philanthropic governments, multilateral development banks, and development finance institutions to scale pro solutions.
Fourth, we should leverage philanthropic capital strategically as a catalyst for poverty and inequality reduction, following the recommendations of the OECD guidance on reducing poverty and inequalities through development cooperation.
In this sense, private philanthropy is growing and typically concentrated in social sectors.
We believe that development partners can encourage philanthropic flows to drive their interventions to tackle poverty and inequality reduction.
Finally, we need stronger platforms for dialogue, transparency, and matchmaking that can connect philanthropic resources with development priorities and investment opportunities.
This is precisely the type of partnership orientated approach that the compromise seeks to advance.
Let me conclude by emphasizing that the SDGs will not be achieved by any single actor working alone.
Governments, international organizations, development banks, civil society, the private sector, and philanthropy each bring different strengths.
Challenge is to build the partnerships that allow these strengths to reinforce each other.
Spain stands ready to support this effort and to continue working with all partners to build a more inclusive, effective, and collaborative financing ecosystem for sustainable development.
Thank you very much.
Fascinating.
Thank you so much and thank you for highlighting the importance of working hand in hand and also, of course, the important Coremity Civilia definitely, such an amazing roadmap for all of us.
I would now like to ask Ambassador Vidya Sadoviic Deputy Permanent representative of Indonesia, to share his remarks on this discussion, probably going back a little bit more to the Asia Pacific region.
Thank you.
Thank you very much for convening this meeting.
I'm really enjoying the presentations and I would like to quote some of them in my presentations, but let me start with the story.
In 2009, after the 22 days military offensive in North Gaza, There's only one regional hospital and its floors are overflowing.
There is a small group of volunteers from Indonesia called Mercy or Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, and Nation grassroots NGO.
And then when they came back to Jakarta, they are committed to build a new hospital in Gaza.
They face a downtime reality.
They need $9 million for these hospitals.
And they committed that they will not ask foreign donors.
They will not wait for state treasury budgets, and they will ask the Indonesian people.
What follows is one of the most remarkable mobilizations of civil society.
The campaign transformed into national movement.
In massive cities, major organizations like Muhamedia and the Indonesian Red Cross opened their networks.
In rural village, Islamic boarding schools organized charity markets, primary school children's, street vendors send their donations.
The hospital built by a few wealthy Takans it's built by collective pocket chains of millions of ordinary Indonesians.
In 2011 they start the development.
Because it's too dangerous and logistically impossible to hire international firms, a group of Indonesian engineers and construction builders volunteer to move together.
The Indonesian government, we mostly send our financial support through UNR or WFPA.
But for this hospital establishment, we provide a political support and to ensure and to remind everybody that this is a sanctuary built entirely by the charity of the public for humanitarian survival.
Unfortunately, last year, this hospital is closed as a result of a severe damage from the last conflicts.
So what we are learning here is that philanthropy can build institutional care, but those institutional need protections, political support, and also multilateral cooperation to survive.
I'm interested to learn from the Asian philanthropy when we talk about the Southeast Asian characteristic when most of our philanthropy usually are faith based.
But I think there's an evolution to that.
We are seeing now corporate led and also business family led philanthropy.
So what we can do, I think across Asia and the Pacific to connect the social energy with the rich convening power and technical capacity of regional and multilateral institutions, including the United Nations.
We can see that philanthropy can be flexible.
They can focus on humanitarian assistance.
They can operate cross border to difficult regions, even to politically sensitive and security dangerous places.
But they are also innovative.
We can see, for example, in the ion, I believe in other places, they are really benefit and also maximize the digital platforms to widen their support, also involving youth and also to ensure that this whole society approach.
One thing that the philanthropy organization is strength is the local network, a local basis, but also the global impact.
They are very much, I think, aware of the global challenges on disaster management, humanitarian, health, environment, et cetera.
When we combine, they can help move partnership from fragmented project towards system level impact to help achieve the agenda 2013.
In our region, it is felt through the shared vision of the Asean community.
This is also where the south south triangular cooperations become important.
Countries in our region have many practical experience to share from community health systems and disaster resilience to digital giving, education, and inclusive finance.
In most of our project, the government also work with this philanthropy because they have this knowledge from the ground.
They have the innovations and then creativity that are needed from different regions to another regions.
One thing that I would like to stress, and I think one of the panels have mentioned is that philanthropy is not a substitute of the global commitment of official development assistance.
The ODA remains essential, particularly for developing countries, least developed countries, small islands developing states.
It should complement, not replace a public commitment.
Going forward, we see several principles for more effective cooperations, alignment with national priorities, transparency and accountability, stronger engagement with local actors, predictable partnerships rather than one initiative, one of initiatives, and better use of data to measure impact.
The UN system in this regard can leverage its convening power and support efforts in synergizing different initiatives to concerted efforts.
If we can bring together this power of communities, the innovations of philanthropy, and the legitimacy of multilateralism, we can build partnerships that are not only well funded, but also trusted and inclusive as well as transformative.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I have to go if you excuse me.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ambassador, and thank you for pointing to the importance of this complementarity of different fields.
We now have just a couple of minutes for two or three questions from the audience.
We can have a few.
Please, when presenting yourself, give your name, your affiliation, and ask either a short question or a short comment, mindful of the time we have before the end of the discussion.
Are there any questions from the audience? We have one, please.
My name is Alejandro Rosales.
Institution surgical organization that works with general people all over the world and professional.
So my question is, as countries face fiscal and climate prohibitive changes, how can partnership between philanthropies and multicular organizations to ensure that the surgical system is not overlooked as a critical investment for reducing health We can take another question one or two here.
If you would want to come to the microphone so the online audience which are here is very numerous can also hear you.
No problem.
Hello, everybody.
This is Hoi from Buddhist Tui Foundation or Indonsia yz and Buddhasuti.
I do have a question for Brian and also maybe for Maria.
We know that India has a 2% CSR and also Islamic Sure has 2.5% for Zakat.
When it comes to philanthropy in Buddhism, what are the common quantifiable metrics used to measure the impact? Thank you.
We could take one more question, if there are any? If not, I would now invite our amazing panel to provide their short responses to those questions.
Who would want to start? I know one of the questions were directed specifically to Brian? Yes, I'm happy to take the one on impact measurement.
I think one thing we've noticed is that while there is a diversity in the sources of philanthropy, whether it's faith based and definitely to very substantial player within that field and doing fantastic work.
The actual interventions and the causes are are quite common.
Whether it's impact measurement in different domains, health, education, very possible to have within each of the domains, the impact that that creates.
I think one thing that I'd like to encourage is moving beyond the project level, and one thing we struggle a lot with philanthropists and I'm sure many other larger institutional and state led organizations as well, is how to allocate resources across multiple domain areas.
And that really is a big sort of focus of what we spend a lot of time thinking about, how do you measure education versus health versus culture, et cetera.
I think this is where the voice of the community must really come in, and so much of philanthropy is to be able to create that sort of self sustaining work for the community so that we can encourage helping themselves.
We can encourage surfacing of the right impact rather than something top down, it's something that we build localize and bottom up.
Thank you, Brian, Maria.
Thank you so much for these excellent questions.
The Walpan Group has, as part of its reform process over the last two years, also created a new scorecard, which you will find online where you can also see the targets that I mentioned on Mission 300 on water on agriculture and agr Conect And so when I mentioned previously that we shape our partnerships based on time bound, mission driven initiatives, this is all at the end of the day measured in terms of how many people we are reaching in terms of these targets.
So the early engagement with philanthropies to concrete, to co design, and collectively with the World Bank Gup with other MPDs, with philanthropies and other partners, including the UN, has to do with delivering on this concrete KPIs, these concrete scorecard indicators that are measured at the country level and they are structured around the plans of countries.
In terms of the importance of investing in human capital, this is I stressed it previously and it's expressed also in the very valid point that you made.
This is indispensable in terms of investment to create more and better jobs.
It's a foundational infrastructure for growth and poverty eradication.
Totally agree.
I health terms, it's also an area where our longstanding engagement with philanthropies has demonstrated incredible results that we are building on.
Please, have some.
If I may just respond to the questions.
We know that now I think financial is under pressure basically from public and private.
I think there are several things that we can work.
One thing is, of course, the strengthening of policy framework because in different countries, I think including Indonesia, we have to strengthen our policy framework, for example, on how to provide incentives for the philanthropy.
This is something that we can do.
Secondly, I'm listening to the World Bank on how to strengthen capacity of the philanthropy on the risking and also make analysis better.
Another thing is also to align with global goals.
I think this is quite important because the philanthropy, the government, and also multilateral or regional institutions could work together when there's alignment of goals, whether it's in development, poverty eradication or other thing with the clear parameters.
And the last things is to move from short term projects to long term commitments.
I think this is something more important.
I think although there's financial pressures, there are some modifications could be made instead of short term projects that are.
That's my $0.05 on this.
Thank you.
Well, I think there have been several gems in this discussion.
So thank you so much to the panelists and also to our audience for very interesting and insightful questions.
To provide us with the closing remarks, I would now invite Hong Ping Yu, who is Director of ECP's Energy Division to deliver them.
Thank you, Maria.
I'm mindful about the time, so I will just make it a short.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, as we conclude today's site event, I would like to express my appreciation for all of you the thoughtful and forward looking reflections shared by your expertise and your contributions have underscored not only the diversity of philanthropic engagement, but also a strong convergence around the need to rethink how partnerships deliver impact at scale.
So several important themes have emerged.
We have heard a clear call to move beyond the isolated initiatives towards approaches that support long term systematic transformation.
This includes strengthening national systems, supporting locally driven solutions and fostering innovation through collaboration.
It also reflects the shared understanding that no single actor can deliver on the ambitions of the 2030 agenda alone.
So encouragingly, this discussion also highlighted the growing willingness to rethink how collaboration happens in practice.
So the emphasis on joint learning coordination, a coordinated action, and more intentional alignment of resources points to a shift towards partnerships that are not only broader but more strategic and resource oriented.
So this aligns closely with the CAP's role as a regional platform that brings together government philanthropies and development partners to exchange knowledge, co create solutions, and advance collective progresses.
So in this context, the SCAP energy transition for green growth and prosperity, because EPGDPE Initiative offers a compelling example and a good practice of how such partnerships can be operationalized.
Launched in 2026 early this year, the initiative supports countries in accelerating clean energy transitions while advancing economic growth, job creation, and social inclusion.
So what makes this model particularly relevant to our discussion is how it integrates multiple dimensions of collaboration.
So this initiative combines analytical work, institutional capacity building regional cooperation, and financing strategies to help countries translate ambition into implementation.
It works across ministries and actors and different sectors and supports the development of investable project pipelines and also helps to mobilize finance at scale.
So in this way, ETGTP illustrates a broader shift in how partnerships are conceived not as a standalone collaborations side by side, But as a part of interconnected ecosystems where different actors contribute distinct but complementary strengthens, we got great support from those foundations for this initiative.
This initiative also shows how regional platforms can help bridge in national priorities with the global agendas, creating the conditions for more coherent and scalable impact.
So I would like to thank all Dnguse speakers for offering reach and forward looking insight that have helped the ground for our discussion in both experience and ambition.
So looking ahead, today's exchange has reinforced that achieving the 2030 agenda will require sustained partnership, openness to new ways of working, and shared commitment to delivering results at scale.
So SCAP stands ready to continue working with all of you to translate today's ideas into practical cooperation and to ensure that philanthropic perspectives are meaningfully integrated into regional and global processes.
And finally, I want to thank all of you once again for your engagement, your expertise, and your continued dedication.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Excellencies, thank you to our amazing power panel.
This was fantastic.
A lot of things taken away from this.
I also want to say a big thank you to the colleagues behind the scenes who have actually been able to make this event possible.
Zainab, Ingred, Fidel, Dia, Sebastian, Vicki, they would recognize themselves.
So thank you so very much and wishing everyone an excellent end of the week.
Thank you.
And also, thank you, Maria, for your moderation.