AVPN Conference 2019

According to the Global Impact Investing Network's (GIIN) 2019 "Sizing the Market" report, the impact investing market has grown to USD 502 billion. A broad cross-section of stakeholders, including asset managers, foundations, family offices, banks, development finance institutions, pension funds and insurance companies are now engaged in this activity, with 93% in GIIN's 2018 annual survey indicating market or above market rate returns.

Join Wellington Management, Standard Chartered, and others to discuss key next steps in the evolution of this sector.

As individual and corporate philanthropy has grown in significance and influence across the Asia-Pacific region, so too have the tools and approaches become more sophisticated, collaborative and contextualised to the needs of the beneficiary. In sectors such as Education,Healthcare, Nutrition and Climate Action, a wide range of stakeholders have come together to collectively innovate and scale effective solutions to complex challenges.

Join Fund for Shared Insight, MacArthur Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and others to discuss key learning and best practices as philanthropy evolves to address the needs of in the region.

Heightened consumer awareness, increasing competition amongst businesses to please the consumers, pressures from regulators, and stakeholders are driving more and more corporates to embrace social impact as part of their integral strategy. It is helping the corporates remain competitive and find new growth opportunities. By focusing on ‘intentional social impact’, corporates can maximize their shareholder value, improve key stakeholder relationships, and be responsible leaders by creating socially conscious goods, services, and markets.

With FTSE4Good Index and Dow Jones Sustainability Indices and other similar indices tracking the social impact of corporates, Corporate Social Impact is the only strategy that can look after the long term health of the companies and keep the profits ringing.

Join Kellogg, Kimberly Clarke, and others to understand how they are creating value for their own companies through social impact.

In Asia’s emerging social investment landscape, social investors are playing a key role in supporting social purpose organisations (SPOs) in many different financial and non-financial ways to help them conceptualise, launch and scale their products and services. To ensure SPOs become investment-ready and achieve the intended social, environmental and financial outcomes, it is critical for funders and resource providers to understand their specific needs and build up their capacity in a sustained and engaged manner.

Join Singtel, Credit Suisse, Inclusive Business Action Network and others to discuss how funders and resource providers can work together to nurture SPOs, facilitate cross-sector collaborations and foster the overall development of the ecosystem.

There is an urgent need to galvanize the entire social sector in Asia-Pacific on environment and climate change. At the AVPN Conference, the widest possible range of stakeholders will be brought together to discuss how to collectively develop the scale, support and investment for solutions on climate action.

More than 1 million child deaths could be averted each year by scaling up proven nutrition interventions. Yet the sector remains a neglected area of global health and development, accounting for less than 1 percent of global foreign aid. Each of these interventions can have life-changing implications across many countries in Asia, however more funding from a variety of stakeholders must be sourced to partner and collaborate on these solutions.

World Bank’s World Development Report 2018, notes that low and middle-income countries will have to increase spending by 117 per cent between 2015 and 2030 to enable most children to complete primary and secondary education with minimum levels of learning as the SDG call for. To effectively scale up education programs, we need to focus on effective and equity-minded spending without which the promise of eliminating extreme poverty through education, will remain elusive.

Global efforts to achieve Good Health and Wellbeing (SDG3) are making progress towards this development goal. However, this progress is uneven – communities that are remote or inaccessible continue to be denied quality healthcare services. Even within urban areas, there are communities who face barriers in equitable access and affordability.

Explore innovations and lessons learnt while identifying cross-sector collaboration opportunities to address health challenges in both developed countries and the last mile.

Year on year, the Deal Share Live remains the highlight of the AVPN Conference, bringing together a strong pipeline of capital providers and social purpose organisations (SPOs) that cut across geographies, sectors, and financing approaches. The Deal Share Live continues to be in a unique position to exchange funders' ideas and experiences, showcase SPOs' work on the ground, and highlight engagement opportunities that will propel diverse ecosystem players to move capital collaboratively towards impact.

This year's discussions will revolve around 5 topics: Investment Readiness, Corporate Shared Value, Creative Economies, Disaster Risk Reduction and Inclusive Business.

The need to engage policy as an ally to the social investment community remains critical in enabling a thriving social investment ecosystem across Asia Pacific. For each track at the AVPN Conference, deep dive into the policy perspective by hearing from practitioners and policymakers on the direct and applied opportunities to consider policy implications and engagement in various impact areas.

Investment in publicly-listed corporations based on environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors has surged in volume across the world. Recently, the world’s largest asset owner with US$1.5 trillion in assets, the Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) in Japan, announced its intention to incorporate ESG factors into all its investment decisions. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager estimates that the global market for ESG exchange-traded funds (ETFs) alone is expected to expand from $25 billion to more than $400 billion within a decade. As these leaders pave the way for more ESG investment in Asia, asset owners will need more clarity on identifying opportunities, developing strategies for impact and the capabilities required for this sector to thrive.

Join Moody’s, Schroeders and others to discuss what it will take to grow a vibrant ESG investing landscape in Asia.