2 philanthropic communities launched to boost clean energy and improve maternal, child health

Straits Times

05-05-2025

The Just Energy Transition community will help to accelerate Asia's energy transition away from pollutive fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
SINGAPORE – With Asia grappling with challenges in shifting to clean energy sources and reducing preventable deaths among women and children, two new communities of givers were launched on May 5 to accelerate the search for solutions in these areas.
These philanthropic groupings, called the Health for Human Potential community and the Just Energy Transition (JET) community, were introduced during the Philanthropy Asia Summit convened by the Temasek Trust-backed Philanthropy Asia Alliance (PAA). The event was held at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre.
This brings the total number of communities initiated by PAA to five. The first three were launched at 2024's summit on blue oceans, sustainable land use, and holistic and inclusive education.
These communities serve as platforms for collaboration among alliance members keen on funding initiatives under the different themes.
'The communities initiative was born from a simple idea: that we can do more, and do better, when we act together,' said PAA chief executive Shaun Seow. 'To drive deep impact, it is critical for PAA to provide focused platforms for collaboration, apart from industry convenings such as the Philanthropy Asia Summit.'
The JET community, led by Tara Climate Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, will help to hasten Asia's energy transition away from pollutive fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. PAA and Tara Climate Foundation did not disclose how much they will commit to fund projects.
According to the ClimateWorks Funding Trends 2024 report, just 20 per cent of philanthropic funding reached Asia, Africa and Latin America combined between 2019 and 2023, while nearly 60 per cent flowed to the United States and Europe.
JET seeks to close this gap, serving as a collaboration platform for philanthropic organisations to support clean energy initiatives that protect the environment, improve livelihoods, and support a better future for millions across the region, said PAA.
This helps funders, governments, industry and local communities to work together to promote initiatives around job creation, workforce re-skilling, and establishing better health outcomes and more resilient communities.
Countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines have set strong renewable energy targets for 2030 – some aiming as high as 40 per cent of their total electricity share.
However, across Asia, wind and solar energy still remain in the single digits, said Tara Climate Foundation chief executive Jamie Choi.
'The start of the Just Energy Transition community will be mostly about solar and wind energy, which is more widely available across all of Asia. But all technologies are on the table, and we're open to tap other sources of renewable energy like geothermal energy in the future,' she said.
She added that the transition must centre around people first for communities to benefit from the shift to clean energy, and hence a need to invest in skills, jobs and support systems.
'With the support of this community, we aim to ensure that the shift to clean energy doesn't just leave anyone behind, especially the workers and communities that have long relied on fossil fuels. At the same time, we want to make sure that the benefits of the transition, from better jobs and clean energy access, to economic opportunity, reach those who need them the most,' she said .
'The bottom line is Asia has momentum. Now, we need bold policies, smart finance, and strong collaboration to turn ambition into action and ensure that transition not just fast, but also fair,' she said.
She also added: 'Energy transition in Asia is too big for anyone to tackle alone. This is why collaboration and deep partnerships are not just a 'nice to have'. They are a must-have.'
The Health and Human Potential community will focus on reducing preventable deaths and disease burdens in South-east Asia, focusing on maternal, newborn, and child health and nutrition, as well as tackling infectious diseases.
Led by the Gates Foundation, Institute of Philanthropy, Quantedge Advancement Initiative, Tanoto Foundation and Temasek Foundation, the community – with the support of PAA – will commit to a funding target of US$100 million (S$1.3 million) by 2030, to target a portfolio of projects.
The Tanoto Foundation, for instance, is dedicated to studying the effects of malnutrition in children – such as obesity, wasting and stunting – and potential solutions. Wasting refers to the progressive weakening of the body, and stunting is an impairment in physical growth and brain development of children.
Working extensively with Indonesia's National Population and Family Planning Board, which coordinates the government's 22 ministries and agencies tackling stunting, Tanoto Foundation has helped identify and assist at-risk families.
'Interventions at the provincial and district level focus on raising awareness among key demographics, including expectant mothers, adolescents, and parents of young children . A notable initiative was partnering with Unicef in 2021 to run mass media and digital campaigns promoting six best practices for preventing stunting to caregivers across Indonesia ,' said Ms Belinda Tanoto, member of the board of trustees at Tanoto Foundation.
She added: 'When we first started work in 2017 in Indonesia, the stunting rate was 31 per cent. But a long-time partnership between the Gates Foundation and a few other donors led us to set up a multi-donor trust fund to work on this... Now, it's dropped to 21 per cent.'
The foundation has since partnered with the Indonesian government and donors, including multilateral organisations like the World Bank and Unicef, and local ones like the Djarum Foundation, to fund medical research and professorships to study solutions. They have also committed US$25 million to replicate its Indonesian programmes addressing stunting and other causes abroad.
The communities initiative will allow philanthropies to come together to go beyond specific countries, and invest in the early years to tackle such issues on a regional scale, she added.
Efforts will initially focus on the region's most populous countries – Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam – to tackle the burden of diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria.
At the summit, the two novel communities will host kick-off sessions to engage like-minded partners to collaborate for shared goals. These sessions will map out a blueprint of the communities' mission, scope of challenge, metrics and timelines for progress.
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