Unlocking Impact: Collaborative Insights from the AVPN Northeast Asia Summit 2025

The Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) recently participated in the AVPN Northeast Asia Summit 2025, held at Roppongi Midtown. This year's summit, themed "Transforming Northeast Asia, Transforming the World: Collaborative Solutions for a Sustainable Future," brought together over 200 participants from 20 different countries. The event featured 60 inspiring speakers across 24 insightful sessions, showcasing the power of collective action in driving sustainable change.

The summit began with a keynote speech by Naina Subberwal Batra, CEO of AVPN. She addressed the challenges faced by the philanthropy and impact sectors in today's turbulent world, highlighting examples of good practices in Japan, including initiatives by SPF that have created significant impact on the ground.
 
Hideo Ishizuki, Director-General of the International Cooperation Bureau of MOFA Japan, emphasized the need for transformative sustainable finance leveraging the power of Official Development Assistance (ODA). He stressed the importance of collaboration between government and the private sector to ensure that impact investments reach intended beneficiaries, and that ODA is effectively utilized to solve societal challenges sustainably.
 

Meanwhile, the SPF Plenary Panel highlighted another important actor to address societal challenges, which is social enterprises. In this panel, combining perspectives from both Northeast and Southeast Asia, four expert panelists discussed how to support social enterprises to scale and the investment potential.

The panel was moderated by Ayaka Matsuno from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation and concluded with a note that social enterprises are essential in solving societal challenges, however their growth and scale require collaborative efforts across sectors and borders, emphasizing the need for unified efforts to drive sustainable development.
 

In the afternoon, the Impact Live breakout session explored how Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) can drive decision-making and enable action. Prof. Carlo Sagun, President of Bayan Family of Foundations, shared insights on aligning measurement with implementation to scale impact. He emphasized the importance of starting with the end in mind, focusing on the impact, and aligning values between funders and social enterprises.

In the breakout session on women empowerment, SPF's program officer Etsuko Ito joined esteemed panelists to promote gender equality in the sector. Etsuko highlighted the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs, including investor bias and imposter syndrome. She also discussed the need for tailored support to transform the entrepreneurship ecosystem to meet the specific needs of women entrepreneurs.

The AVPN Northeast Asia Summit 2025 underscored the importance of collaboration, innovative financing, and tailored support in driving sustainable development. By bringing together key stakeholders, the summit highlighted the potential of social enterprises to address critical social, environmental, and economic challenges, contributing to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For SPF, the summit reinforced the need to be more intentional and proactive in driving change through catalytic philanthropy, ensuring that their efforts continue to foster impactful and sustainable solutions.