- 4 months ago
Featuring Tan Sri Nazir Razak, Chairman, ASEAN-BAC Malaysia and Dr. Ruth A. Shapiro, Co-Founder & CEO of CAPS, this in-depth interview examines ASEAN’s corporate giving landscape amid declining foreign aid. The discussion highlights the ASEAN Corporate Giving Report and explores how philanthropy, public-private partnerships, and purpose-driven business can position ASEAN as a global leader in the Global South.
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00:00Welcome to Niaga Awani, I'm Nina Rosman and for today's segment we're going to take a closer look
00:13on Southeast Asia is facing quite serious challenge and foreign aid from countries like UK, US,
00:20Netherlands and even France dropped by as much from 30 to 37 percent and we can say with less
00:26money coming in, the grant is growing, we can say the private sector in ASEAN is under pressure to step up.
00:33The big question is can corporate giving rise to cease the challenge and today we're looking at the new
00:39ASEAN corporate giving report commissioned by ASEAN BAC Malaysia and conducted by the Centre for
00:44Asian Philanthropy and Society. The study not only shows how urgent we need for a stronger and more
00:49coordinated corporate giving but also enhanced to see how ASEAN can become a world leader in purpose
00:57driven giving especially for the global south and for this discussion I please welcome our guest ready
01:03in the studio. Next to me is Tan Sri Nazirazah, Chairman ASEAN BAC Malaysia and Dr Ruf Shapiro,
01:09co-founder and CEO for the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society CAPS. Thank you very much Tan Sri and
01:17Doctor how are you both? Good thank you thank you for having us. Definitely talking about ASEAN it's a very
01:23timely topic when this year we are the chairman, chairmanship for ASEAN and definitely a lot of
01:29expert we need to take a look at but this time we're going to take more focus on the corporate giving
01:33and talking about the corporate giving why is it more urgent now than ever in ASEAN? Probably we can start
01:42with Tan Sri first. Thank you so you know what we decided is that for 2025 as chairman of the ASEAN
01:52Business Advisory Council we would spearhead 12 important initiatives and one of those initiatives
01:59was the commissioning of this report on corporate social responsibility in ASEAN. The work was done by CAPS
02:08and it's groundbreaking. There's never been such a detailed report on the state or CSR in ASEAN and it's
02:17extremely important extremely timely. As you know the national Malaysia's theme for its ASEAN
02:24championship is inclusivity and sustainability. One. Two is I've always been of the view that the
02:33multiplier effect of CSR is far greater than the money channeled by the government into the needy if you like.
02:50Two is during my time running an ASEAN organization I was frustrated by the lack of cross-border giving
02:58because of the incentives and so on and so forth. It was you know it's very very difficult for us to give
03:06across borders. Yeah and that's not very community. If you want to build an ASEAN community you must see
03:14you must with ease see the richer countries of ASEAN give to the poorer countries. The third reason
03:20is that CSR has somewhat been sidelined a little bit with the rise of ESG and I think it's very important
03:31that we remind everyone of the importance of CSR and of course you mentioned this another issue which is the retreat
03:38of global aid into all countries and that's a big issue. I think last year loan USAID to ASEAN was over in
03:50800 million US and we don't know to what extent that will retreat this year. And also relatedly I think there are a lot of governments
04:03have fiscal challenges in terms of their budgets etc and it's very important that corporates give back to society.
04:10So those are the main reasons why we commissioned this report.
04:14And we understand also the report was conducted by the Center for Asian Philanthropy and Society. Maybe Dr. Shafiro can share
04:21before we share how critical corporate giving within the ASEAN context. Maybe share a little bit context what is CAPS?
04:28Thank you very much and thank you for having me on the program.
04:32So CAPS looks at all the ways in which private resources do good in Asia.
04:40We are headquartered in Hong Kong but we work across the region in 18 economies so that's 16 countries plus Hong Kong and Taiwan.
04:49And we, although philanthropy is in our name mostly because I wanted a catchy acronym like CAPS,
04:57we look beyond philanthropy at CSR, impact investing, blended finance, really all ways in which private resources do good.
05:05And really what we're trying to understand is what works within the Asian context.
05:12What works on the ground in Malaysia and what do we need to understand and know about those strategies and those models
05:19that can be emulated by others in Malaysia and across the region and really ideally around the world.
05:26And there's been a kind of a sense that best practice emanates out of the West.
05:33But we at CAPS don't think that that's necessarily true. It's just been in the minds of people.
05:39So what we want to understand is in order to say what best practice is you have to look for most effective practices.
05:46And so we do that and we understand what is working on the ground here and how can we in effect double down on effective strategies.
05:55And this is the reason why corporate giving is very important right now.
06:00Tan Sri, we know that you personally champion this report.
06:04Maybe explain why do you champion this report and how does it fit into the ASEAN BAC 2025 priorities?
06:13Well, ASEAN BAC essentially picks 12 projects that I think will move the dial in terms of development of ASEAN and also integration of ASEAN.
06:26And I think the raising the level of CSR is extremely important on both course.
06:35And I think, you know, Ruth will probably go into it later.
06:39But corporate giving interestingly in this part of the world is quite different to the West.
06:45There's a lot of corporate giving that is focused on nation building elements like education, like healthcare.
06:54So we cannot afford for that to reduce.
06:58What we need is for that to increase.
07:01And for that to increase, there's a lot of policy and overall ecosystem reforms that I think would be very, very effective.
07:14And I think that with the report today, hopefully, the reports are actually quite specific in terms of the state of CSR in each country.
07:23In terms of the tax breaks and so on and so forth.
07:26And also looking at some other countries.
07:28As you know, India today, they have its mandatory that 2% of corporate profits before tax is actually dedicated to CSR.
07:41And that's very, very powerful. I'm not sure whether I recommend it in ASEAN, but it's important to lay out the possible strategies to increase the amount of corporate giving in ASEAN.
07:52And you know, when I ran CIMB, one of the things I did was set up the CIMB Foundation.
07:57And I love the work that we did in CIMB Foundation.
08:01I mean, of course, CIMB backed squash as a sport.
08:05We promoted Nicole David, but there was the kind of less profiled work that we did in terms of developing young squash talents in Malaysia.
08:18And look, some of them, Siva Sanggari actually was a beneficiary of that program.
08:23Yeah, and of course, there's also many, many segments of society that benefited from the CIMB Foundation.
08:30And I really believe that if we scale up more and more companies, set up foundations, more and more companies give to society, the communities they serve, the needy that are there.
08:45I think it would make ASEAN just that bit more integrated and that much of a better place to be.
08:52Dr. Shapiro, your research shows some tech potential in ASEAN corporate giving.
08:57What are the most surprising gaps that you have found from the beginning until the end of the research?
09:03Well, I think that one gap which can be addressed, and we're actually calling for it to be addressed in this report, or ASEAN will call for it to be addressed through this report,
09:16is the lack of definition of exactly what is CSR, what is corporate philanthropy.
09:23One of the reasons that we're particularly bullish on companies taking on this kind of agenda, there's two.
09:32One is, if you think about companies in Southeast Asia, the larger ones tend to have a dominant shareholder, and it's either the state, like in CIMB, or a family.
09:45Both of those organizations are committed to the health and well-being of their country, of their communities.
09:52And so they're dedicated to using their company, not just only to make money, but to do good and help to essentially engender flourishing communities, where they operate and beyond.
10:07The good news about corporations taking on this role is that, in addition to financial resources, which are really important, and the number one cause that most people think about with philanthropy,
10:22corporations also bring technical skills, they bring supply chains, they bring management expertise, they bring other skill sets that are really important to the effective nature of these projects.
10:37And so you get a package rather than just a check. And that's really important because then you have a good story to tell, and those projects are more sustainable over time.
10:48So we think corporate engagement in communities is a win-win for both the companies and for the communities.
10:57And talking about financial resources is very important, especially in the context of philanthropy, as you mentioned, that not only resources, financial resources,
11:05but also take a look at what they bring forward to the table, also the technical steel and management expertise.
11:10But the report also says ASEAN corporate giving is fermented. What are the biggest problems this causes, Doctor?
11:16Well, I think that we do need a shared definition of what it is, because then we can, all the companies throughout the region,
11:24can essentially get behind a shared understanding of what it is. Most people are surprised, and Tan Sri just alluded to this,
11:32they assume that the S in ESG, which stands for social, actually talks about this community engagement or CSR, but it does not.
11:44S tends to stand for how you treat your own people within the company, less so about your community engagement.
11:52And with the rise of ESG and sustainability, there are many, many requirements and guidelines that companies have around sustainability.
12:01And many protocols, mostly which emanate out of Europe and North America, but no such thing exists around CSR.
12:12So what we're saying is let's get behind a shared definition, let's get behind companies having some shared notion of what they're reporting on.
12:22When everyone reports, there's a kind of a good FOMO that happens where a company might say, I see that my competitor is doing all A, B, and C,
12:35and so I also need to do A, B, and C, and E, because I'm better than the other company.
12:40Right? So it actually creates some healthy competition in doing good.
12:44And we would love to see that kind of healthy competition happening throughout ASEAN.
12:50And Thamsri, with your experience and journey with the CINB foundations, what's your perspective on saying the report saying ASEAN corporate is fermented?
12:59What's your thought on that?
13:01No, I think in terms of the overall picture, definition is one thing. The whole rules and regulations around giving is in a way fragmented.
13:16If you look at Singapore, it's probably the gold standard in terms of tax breaks, etc.
13:22And if you just look at Malaysia, it's very easy to zoom in on sort of three key areas.
13:28One is the cap, right, in terms of how much CSR a company can do before it gets to enjoy the tax relief.
13:39It's only 10%. Two is there is no relief for cross border. It has to be domestic only.
13:46So if you want to build an ASEAN company, Masa Dulu, when we were building CINB, we started CINB Laos.
13:52There was so much giving that we could do to kind of, you know, enter Laos the right way.
13:58But we couldn't because of this restriction. And thirdly, there's no tax break for volunteerism.
14:04And the corporate dollar is much more effective when staff volunteer. And you need to encourage volunteerism.
14:13You know, I remember with CINB, when we give, I always insisted that, you know, when we have these programs,
14:19it's about the staff themselves going out and helping communities. So not just the corporate dollar.
14:25It must come with staff. And then the impact is multiplied because the staff get very involved.
14:32And we know that young people choose places to work based on whether they have a robust CSR program that's important to the next generation.
14:44And so it's a way to entice them to come and work at the company by having these kind of programs embedded in their work.
14:52Not only giving dollars out, it's very the staff because we know that people, community, that's how they collaborate other than the system actually.
15:00And for Tanshree, we want to take a look at the ASEAN. How can ASEAN become a global leader in purpose-driven giving, especially in the global south, taking into consideration whatever challenges within the challenges, opportunities or trend within the global?
15:19I think certainly. I mean, ASEAN is, apart from the EU, the most successful regional organization already.
15:26And I think in the area of CSR, if we essentially, if the leaders, ASEAN Secretary read this report and take on this challenge of elevating CSR in the region, then you can easily imagine how we could port this new framework to other parts of the world.
15:46I think it would be very exciting. And you know, one of my concerns with ASEAN overall, a lot of work is done, a lot of good work is done, but whether there's a follow-through, it's important.
16:00So, hopefully, I'm presenting this report to the ASEAN. I presented a brief version of it to the ASEAN leaders earlier this year.
16:11Next month, I'll be presenting it to the ASEAN Economic Ministers as well as the ASEAN Secretariat.
16:16And I'm really going to push for them to take it seriously and take on the recommendations, including getting the ASEAN Secretariat to put together a task force to focus on definitions, focus on how we can set what are the gold standards for each country to adopt in terms of rules, regulations, ecosystems, etc.
16:39And, you know, one of the things that Ruth's team struggle with is the lack of definition and lack of data.
16:46So, one of the things we need to do is consolidate all the data so that we can have a kind of starting point of where we are today in numbers.
16:57And then, what is the aspiration in terms of how much ASEAN can do?
17:03I mean, today, if you use the US percentages, then you're talking about maybe five and a half billion US dollars that should be in CSR.
17:13We do not know the exact numbers what's there, but we should.
17:18And, inshallah, once we put this framework together, ASEAN can maybe do more because, of course, our level of development is different to the US.
17:26We should be putting more corporate dollar in CSR.
17:30I just wanted to comment on what Tan Sri just said.
17:34So, if you look at where the money is going, we had to generate data, actually, because it didn't exist.
17:42But we did, and we can stand behind how we did that.
17:46Nineteen percent of CSR money right now in ASEAN is going to education.
17:51Eleven percent goes to health, and nine percent both to environment and skilling.
18:01And, as Tan Sri said, these are fundamental building blocks of economic development and growth.
18:07So, these are really important factors to the continued, essentially, flourishing of ASEAN as a region.
18:15And then, you know, when you think about how to incentivize, what we say about tax breaks, tax incentives, is that in this part of the world, government matters.
18:29Or, government looms large.
18:31So, if you ask a philanthropist, do you do this because of a tax break, I will guarantee you that 99.9 percent of the time they will say, no, of course not.
18:40I'm doing it from my heart.
18:42But do they try to get that tax break?
18:44Yes, they do.
18:45And, but more importantly, it's the government signaling.
18:49So, when Singapore gives a 250 percent subsidy on corporate giving and individual giving, that's the government of Singapore saying, we want you to do this, and we're going to put our money where our mouth is to incentivize you.
19:04And so, that messaging is important because companies want to act in alignment with their own governments.
19:14And so, they're looking for the signaling.
19:16They're aware of the signaling.
19:18Developing this framework is not easy, as we require every corporations, every cooperative from every layers of governments, private sector.
19:27And we know that this requires huge responsibility and commitment.
19:32And you're presenting the framework.
19:36How can you ensure that the corporate giving match national goes without compromising the authenticity and losing the company interest, Tan Sri?
19:45No, I don't think.
19:47Basically, what we will do is present this report and for the governments to follow through.
19:55Yeah.
19:56And of course, in terms of giving, there's a lot of, you know, people talk about authenticity, genuineness, and all that.
20:05I think what's important is in the end of the day, they give.
20:07Right?
20:08What the real motive is, it doesn't matter to me.
20:11In the end of the day, if the outcome is more money goes to communities in need, I don't care whether there was authenticity in motive.
20:22In the end of the day, the people are better off.
20:25Good is done.
20:26In the end of the day, you ask the people, the receiver, are they better off?
20:30They say yes, then that's a good thing.
20:33So I want to give just a few examples, if I might.
20:38What's growing is what we call public-private philanthropic partnerships or public-private partnerships for social good.
20:46Remember that most people, when they say public-private partnerships, they're talking about the establishment of a port or a toll road,
20:53where the company is building it, right, and income gets derived.
20:57For social good, it's much more difficult, because there's not really an exit strategy in the same way, nor is there an income-generating strategy.
21:05Yet, we see these kinds of arrangements proliferating.
21:09And they can start from different places.
21:11So in the Philippines, which we all know is somewhat, unfortunately for that country, ground zero when it comes to climate change,
21:19every natural disaster happening there, the government turned to the large companies and said,
21:25we cannot handle response, disaster response adequately.
21:31You've got to help us.
21:32And so all the big companies essentially worked together to establish the
21:37Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation to say, okay, you know, this company is really good at infrastructure, development of buildings.
21:48This company is great at electricity.
21:50This company is terrific at agriculture.
21:53And they divvied up who's responsible for what kinds of activities and where.
21:59Where are you strong?
22:00Are you strong in the middle of the country, you know, in Luzo and in Mindanao?
22:04And so when a disaster happens, there's a rational approach to utilize the resources of all the companies that they've agreed to.
22:14That's a great example.
22:17Another example here in Malaysia is what came out, it came from Kazana and it's called Yaya San Amir.
22:27And Kazana figured out that they themselves needed more employees who could really think on their feet,
22:34be creative, have decision making and innovation skills.
22:39And so they, a couple of very dynamic people from Kazana created a foundation to work with schools in a way that allows students to have more confidence,
22:51to make decisions, to be creative, to have voice.
22:54And those students tend to score very high on standardized tests.
22:59And so the thinking came out of Kazana and the government of Malaysia has now picked up the work of Yaya San Amir
23:08and rolling it out throughout the country.
23:11And so that's another great example of kind of incubating these ideas from the private sector, but helping the country as a whole.
23:19What are some of the Asia's giving culture differ from other parts of Asia, for example from India or Singapore?
23:28Well Singapore, we have to remember that most of the big companies in Singapore are government-linked companies.
23:34I mean it's called Singapore, for a reason, right?
23:39And so they are by definition kind of imbued and connected to the government economic development agenda.
23:49And that includes the region.
23:52So Singapore has had a number of efforts to reach out into ASEAN to help build capacity,
23:59primarily historically through the Tomasic Foundation, but through other types of companies.
24:08DBS has such work, but it's a government-linked.
24:12And so a number of these efforts have been aligned around helping Singapore but helping the region.
24:18It's always tricky to use Singapore as an example of anything because it's such an outlier in some ways.
24:27I mean it is one city, city-state, so it's hard to actually say we should be more like Singapore,
24:36although we can learn some lessons there.
24:39They certainly align their giving.
24:41They also have something called the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Center that helps all the companies,
24:47even if they're not government-linked companies, learn about best practices in utilizing volunteerism, incentivizing.
24:55And Singapore does have a formula, to your earlier point, of allowing for tax credits for companies
25:04that use volunteers to address those CSR projects.
25:10There's a way to count that toward their overall CSR spend, which is very healthy.
25:16And we need a very effective good leadership to lead all of this framework, policies, projects, developments, integrations.
25:24Tan Sri, what is ASEAN BAC's main call to action and how will you rally regional business leaders?
25:31Well, we are going to present to the governments.
25:34We want the ASEAN Secretariat to take the lead.
25:37And when they take the lead, we will respond by getting the business advisory councils in each country
25:44to mobilize their own corporate sectors behind this whole cause.
25:48That is my plan. That is my plan.
25:51And I think the corporates will respond positively because I do know a lot of corporates who are actually...
26:00Some have told me, yeah, actually, we're so bogged down with this ESG, we've kind of forgotten the CSR.
26:05If you recall, 10 years ago, all talk was about CSR.
26:08Even in Malaysia, at that point in time, the government was telling GLCs 1% of free tax profits should go to CSR.
26:16When was the last time you heard about CSR here? It's been some time.
26:19Everything is on ESG, environment, etc. It's an issue.
26:24But there are win-wins where you can look at sustainability and you can look at CSR like sustainable livelihoods
26:30or, you know, those kinds of projects that essentially allow you to tick both boxes.
26:38And we need those in a region. Marine protected areas allow you to tick both boxes.
26:43So we need to be thinking of innovative ways to do CSR in ways that also help the environment.
26:50And the good news is there's a lot of great work happening already on the ground.
26:55And I might add that one of we think CAP's value-add is that humility is one of the values that are traditional values
27:06within essentially families and companies in ASEAN.
27:11And humility is great, except then you're not telling the world what you're doing
27:16and you may be doing really innovative, exciting work, but who would know about it because you're being too humble.
27:22So in some ways we see that as part of our role, but the call for better reporting allows others to see that there is great work happening on the ground
27:31and that there are some models that are maybe homegrown that are worth understanding and emulating.
27:37And we do not want the great work to go to waste.
27:40And definitely all the planning, the execution within this framework, within this report we are planning right now,
27:45all of this will be derived by the younger generation, Tan Sri.
27:49And you mentioned also about the younger generation participation in the culture of giving.
27:54We know that a lot of people nowadays, especially younger generation, we are facing with Gen Z coming into the workplace right now.
28:01Right.
28:02Younger generation want companies to have a purpose. How can ASEAN really answer this call, Tan Sri?
28:08I think it answers this call by recognizing that it must have the framework, make it easy for companies to focus on purpose.
28:20And within that purpose also is to help communities that they serve.
28:27And profit is one thing. I think companies, to me, companies must state purpose first.
28:36And profits come out of it. And within purpose must always be an element of helping society.
28:44And that must be built into company purpose.
28:47If you look at annual reports today, there is not enough focus on purpose.
28:51And that needs to be built up. And I think a lot of that is contained in this report by the way.
28:56So, this report is now being made public. So, I really hope that…
29:02It's a very thick report, everyone. It's a thick report.
29:04See the binder? Very…
29:07But it's done in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. So, it's very easy to flip through.
29:14So, I think, please read the report. And a report like this, yes, I could present to governments and all that.
29:21But in the end of the day, it becomes effective when, you know, there are more and more voices in support of this agenda.
29:29So, that's why we're here, I guess. You know, I hope we get more and more voices supporting this idea that we really should put CSR back on the forefront.
29:39And there's a lot of ways, there are a lot of reforms that can be put forward in order to get CSR much more effective across ASEAN.
29:50And we know that giving support through money, through energy, through our time, we know it's not easy.
29:58And probably the younger generation things that CSR are giving probably is not sexy to them.
30:03But how can we scale up the understanding, awareness, and participation?
30:08I think that the myth that we need to dispel is that doing this is some sort of tax that is, you know, when you're looking at your PNL, it's just an L.
30:21And that's not the case. In the India example that Tansuri mentioned, one of the rules about that 2% is that the decisions need to emanate from the C-suite.
30:32So what's happened in India is that the CSR activities have been integrated into the overall, you know, kind of enterprise.
30:42And so they found many win-win solutions.
30:45I think win-wins, ways to do good and do well, appeal to everyone of all ages.
30:54And I definitely think that I would push back on your saying that CSR, maybe the term is not sexy.
31:04Profit with purpose, doing good and doing well, finding win-win ways, that that does appeal to young people.
31:13And one of the real growth areas in Malaysia are social enterprises, which endeavor to do just that.
31:22Those are businesses that are seeking to do good and do well.
31:25And those are driven primarily by young people who want to figure out alternative ways to do this.
31:31So from small social enterprises to large companies like CIMB, there's a lot of opportunity to think creatively about integrating,
31:40helping the community into the business in more sustainable and impactful manners.
31:46And I just add, you know, I've been interviewing young people for many, many years.
31:50And, you know, when I first started in the 90s, it was very much Gordon Gekko, Wall Street types.
31:57Right.
31:58But as we evolved, you know, in the past 10 years, the next generation, if you interview and don't talk about how you help society as a company, you put them off.
32:11CSR is a very, very important element for the next generation.
32:16This is a very inspiring story, experience you have just shared with us.
32:20And I want to say thank you very much for coming here and sharing all of this journey.
32:25And again, I say thank you very much to Tuan Sunil Azirazad, Chairman Arsene BAC Malaysia,
32:29and Dr Ruf Shapiro, Co-Founder and CEO of the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society CAPS.
32:34I hope to see you again. You'll be very busy. Thank you very much.
32:38And definitely, all of our discussion here will be featured in astronomy.com and across all social media platforms.
32:44And this is the end of our section. See you next time.
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