Driving Impact: Southeast Asia as a Rising Force in Social Developments and Impact Investing

PRNewswire
Singapore, February 25: The AVPN Southeast Asia Summit 2025, held at Fairmont Singapore on 24 and 25 February, brought together over 450 investors, leading philanthropists, government officials, policymakers, and impact leaders from around the world to accelerate solutions for Southeast Asia's most pressing challenges. Under the theme "Voices of Southeast Asia: Driving Regional Transformation and Inclusion," discussions focused on the region's growing leadership in tackling climate action, health resilience, gender equality, catalytic philanthropy, blended finance and impact investing, and AI skilling.
* The region's rising maturity and rapid economic growth position it as a critical player in addressing social issues, while fostering innovative solutions through collaborative ecosystems.
Guests of honour who attended the Summit include Dr. Mari Elka Pangestu, Indonesia's Presidential Special Envoy for International Trade and Multilateral Cooperation, Bapak Muhammad Chatib Basri, Co-Chairman of Pandemic Fund and former Minister of Finance of Indonesia, Dr. Kraiyos Patrawart, the Managing Director of the Equitable Education Fund, Mr Vinamra Srivasta, Chief Sustainability & Sustainable Investments Officer, CapitaLand Investment (CLI), and Boon Heong Ng, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Temasek Foundation.
Addressing Southeast Asia's Critical Challenges
Southeast Asia is one of the world's fastest-growing regions, but it faces mounting challenges, including the need for net-zero strategies, workforce upskilling, gender equity, and healthcare resilience. Despite its economic strength, investment gaps continue to hinder progress in these critical areas. To overcome these barriers and drive sustainable, inclusive growth, collaborative capital and innovative financing models are essential. This includes exploring new approaches and tools to reform the development finance architecture, to raise the voice of Asia at critical global forums.
Encouragingly, impact investing in the region has surged, with over 67% of cumulative capital from the past 15 years committed in just the last three years (2020-2022), signalling strong momentum for solutions-driven investment. Starting in 2025, world leaders have emphasised the need for collective action and shared solutions to advance the SDGs at global forums. Southeast Asia is well-positioned to emerge as a leader in tackling social challenges through innovative, localised approaches.
"The AVPN Southeast Asia Summit 2025 reinforced that while the region is increasingly recognised as a key driver of global impact, unlocking its full potential requires more than dialogue--it demands tangible commitments and coordinated action," said Naina Subberwal Batra, CEO of AVPN. "By convening the region's key changemakers, we are not only spotlighting solutions in gender finance, AI skilling, and climate resilience but also mobilising the capital and partnerships necessary to turn ideas into measurable outcomes."
Building Resilience for Vulnerable Communities in Asia
CapitaLand Hope Foundation, the philanthropic arm of CapitaLand Group, in collaboration with AVPN, announced the launch of the SGD 3 million CapitaLand Community Resilience Initiative at the Summit. This initiative, which will be implemented across China, India, Singapore, and Vietnam, aims to equip vulnerable children and youth with the skills, knowledge and support systems needed to thrive in the face of adversity, strengthening their resilience to ensure a stronger, more adaptive and equitable future. Funding will be provided to projects by non-profit organisations focused on improving the education, health and well-being of children and youths.
Improving Access to Medicine Across Southeast Asia
AVPN, together with Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Access Health International, and SingHealth Duke-NUS Global Health Institute have pledged to ensure sustained and equitable access to medicines in Southeast Asia amongst underserved communities.
The Southeast Asia Access to Medicines Pledge underpins a shared vision of improving medicine access in the region, addressing disparities both within and across countries. Leveraging multistakeholder collaboration, each organisation aims to share knowledge and best practices, invest resources, work together to drive progress, and continuously measure and report impact.
Generating Insights and Increasing Transparency for Social Investment Ecosystem
AVPN and Impact Intelligence launched the Social investment in Asia in Action (SIAA) Dashboard, an AI-powered tool that provides a dynamic view of social investment capital flows across Asia-Pacific. Covering more than 50 markets across Asia-Pacific, the dashboard generates news and insights on social investments across Asia, and identifies specific impact activities across sectors, geographies, capital investment mechanisms and more.
This tool will support the social investment ecosystem by improving decision making through the deployment of valuable insights, increase accountability and transparency, and strengthen collaboration between social investors, philanthropists, corporates and other stakeholders.
Looking Ahead: Turning Commitments into Action
As the Summit concluded, speakers emphasised the need to move from discussion to action.
"The Southeast Asia region is integral to tackling global challenges, from climate change and gender equality to healthcare resilience and youth empowerment," said Naina. "The solutions developed here will not only shape Southeast Asia's trajectory but also contribute to the broader global agenda."

About AVPN
AVPN is the largest network of social investors in Asia, comprising over 600 funders and resource providers across 33 markets. Our mission is to increase the flow and effectiveness of financial, human, and intellectual capital in Asia by enabling members to channel resources towards impact. As an ecosystem builder, AVPN enables its members to connect, learn, act, and lead across key pillars and improve the effectiveness of deployed capital, bringing local field needs, regional expertise, and policy insights to the forefront. We have market representatives as local points of contacts across Asia-Pacific and beyond, including Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Philippines. For more information about AVPN and our work, please visit our website and read our latest Annual Review 2023/24.
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