The current geopolitical situation has had an impact on the social sector. For example, as per a recent study, the cuts to US foreign aid could impact TB programmes in high-burden nations in India, and could cause 22 lakh additional deaths in the next five years.
Given the current situation, “the local funders need to step in, be it the corporates, philanthropists or impact investors,” says Dhun Davar, chief of programmes and deputy CEO at the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, or AVPN, Asia’s largest social investment network. “And blended finance could be a solution,” she adds.
During the recently concluded AVPN Global Conference 2025 in Hong Kong, Davar spoke to The WEEK about sectors attractive to social investors in India, how local funders need to step up, and whether Indian philanthropists are doing enough.
Edited excerpts:
Q: AVPN works across Asia. Which countries are especially good at utilising social capital? Where does India stand?
A: When it comes to requirements, the need for social capital is seen across the region. You’ll also find the presence of strong grassroots, community-based organisations across Asia. However, the challenge lies in the visibility of these organisations and the kind of work they’re doing. This visibility is seen better in some countries than in others.
Q: Coming to India, it’s a leading nation in the wider region. Which sectors in India are social investors looking at?
A: When you look at the term social investment, it’s a return-seeking form of capital, but it is also broadly used to describe grant-making or philanthropic capital.
In India, we’re seeing an increasing interest in climate and its intersection with other, more traditional issues, such as health, education, and gender.
Where the money goes obviously depends on the owner of the capital. For example, CSR is a major pool of capital, and we see such funders largely focusing on more traditional issues of health, education, livelihoods, and skilling. And more recently, we're seeing the changing trend of exploring the intersections between these and climate.
Q: We have several SDGs to achieve by 2030. Is India on track?
A: Although I’m an eternal optimist, I think globally, we need to take action urgently, as we’re in 2025, and 2030 isn’t far away.
However, the situation looks positive when it comes to India, as we already have the building blocks in place and we just need to connect them.
We have a very well-developed civil society that has been running certain projects for decades. The gap is equipping them with the know-how. For example, a health organisation might be running health programmes without realising that the health issue is being driven by a climate risk. And hence, it needs to team up with a climate organisation or build its own know-how for the same.
So at the grassroots level, it’s a matter of educating and connecting those dots. But then a question arises, regarding funding – ‘How do you fund connecting these dots?’ And we are in a situation right now where, because of a lot of major cuts in aid flows across the world and to India as well, you do have a complete change in the financing paradigm.
So that is something that we need urgent attention to, which requires policy enablement. Here, the policymakers need to create the right incentives and enable the legal architecture for a new type of funder to emerge in India.
So it is about building the impact investing ecosystem to bring private capital to plug the gap that has emerged due to geopolitical changes.
Q: What are the solutions for the foreign aid cuts?
A: The solutions lie in just reimagining how we finance social impact and development. And it is absolutely about local funders stepping up, be it the corporates, philanthropists, or impact investors, and also identifying how their different forms of capital can work together to finance projects and programs.
So something like blended finance. The introduction of philanthropy in the blended finance conversation is actually one possible solution.
Q: Are Indian philanthropists stepping up?
A: Not to the extent that’s required, which is why we still have a financing gap. And philanthropists by themselves cannot even fill that gap. We also need, along with it, some innovative solutions.