In 2025, the world feels perpetually distracted. Elections, wars, AI, celebrity scandals — global attention ricochets between urgency and noise. Today it’s one crisis, tomorrow another. And we all scroll on.
And yet, a slower, more existential threat escalates beneath it all: climate change.
Especially in Southeast Asia, the impacts are already reshaping daily life. I’m guilty of tuning out, and I know many others do the same head-in-the-sand routine when they skim stories about rising temperatures or shrinking icebergs.
If climate change is so serious then why aren’t we acting like it is?
Southeast Asia is on the frontlines of climate risk. Jakarta is sinking by as much as 17 centimetres a year, one of the fastest rates in the world. In Vietnam, over 50% of the Mekong Delta’s land area is projected to face saltwater intrusion by 2050, threatening not just agriculture, but the food security of tens of millions.
Saline intrusion is already choking rice production in the Delta, while intensifying heatwaves and droughts disrupt water supplies. When these come, droughts disrupt water supplies, and you don’t have to be studying GCSE geography like my daughter (who knows more about this than I) to appreciate what then transpires from a biodiversity perspective: that everything is gradually disappearing.
The IPCC (our collective authority on the matter) warns the window to avoid catastrophic change is ‘brief and rapidly closing.’ That’s not hyperbole — it’s scientific consensus. And, still, climate continues to feel like a background hum, rather than breaking news.
The private sector must play a more central role to Southeast Asia’s adaptation and resilience efforts. Governments alone can’t foot the bill or engineer every innovation. Yet, despite growing interest in green investments and carbon markets, engagement remains patchy.
Vietnam’s 2025 Carbon Market Forum and the P4G Summit were welcome steps. These meetings offered the usual fare: policy frameworks, optimistic keynotes, and lots of “roadmaps.” But translating these into real action remains a challenge.
I’ve worked for a long time promoting sustainability and, in particular, getting business to the table however, let’s be honest, when it comes to climate change, aside from a few regional giants and climate-conscious smaller businesses, most private sector entities are still unsure what climate action means for them, or how to act without sacrificing profitability.
The colourful urban skyline of Quezon City, Metro Manila. Photo credit: Tim Bishop.
So, I think my call to action on this would, ideally, be quite broad (the ownership of the issue should be everyone’s) however it is here is where I think international NGOs (like my former employer CARE) should step in — not as saviours, but as agencies that can help shape the systems that exist within the private sector, and which relate to climate change.
CARE doesn’t treat women’s empowerment and climate action as separate goals. Instead, they have developed programmes that integrate them through market-based, locally led interventions, tackling environmental threats and economic inequality at once.
In Vietnam, for example, HerGreenVenture supports women-led enterprises with training and green finance to adopt low-emission farming and scale sustainable technologies. In Cambodia, CARE also runs community recycling programmes that help women turn waste into income and reduce landfill pollution. And in Thailand, CARE’s eco-tourism projects led by women are creating jobs while preserving forests and coastlines.
What links these diverse initiatives is a belief that resilience is built from the bottom up.
CARE’s core strategy is clear: gender equality isn’t a side note, it’s central. Women, particularly in rural and informal economies, often bear the worst climate shocks while themselves holding the keys to adaptation. Give them access to green finance, leadership roles, and supply chains, and resilience becomes lasting.
We’ve been warned for years, but action has lagged far behind awareness. Climate experts might point to progress — but, from where I sit, I don’t see enough.
If you’re a business leader, why not starting by asking: how is your company contributing to climate adaptation today? Not just ESG compliance, but to real-world impact.
If you’re in government, how about checking the extent to which you are creating the right conditions for innovation, for inclusion, and ultimately for scale?
And, if you’re an INGO or donor, let’s have more discussion about whether you are building systems or simply just running programmes?
We may live in distracted times. I find myself fighting this day-on-day myself. But, distraction doesn’t make the climate crisis less real — if anything it just makes it less seen.
The question is no longer if it’s serious. It’s whether we’ll start acting like it.
For fourteen years, as long as I’ve lived in Saigon, I’ve been blogging about ‘Private Sector Engagement’ – its evolution, its setbacks, and its vast potential to drive social and economic change. Time and again, I’ve emphasized one thing: alliances with business are not just beneficial, they are essential.
Yet, at a time when global companies are facing political pressure to roll back Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, there’s a real risk that corporate commitments to broader social impact (including sustainability, worker rights, and responsible business practices) could be deprioritized or abandoned altogether.
With government funding for aid shrinking fast, the question is no longer whether the private sector should play a role in sustainable development – but how fast we can make that happen? Companies must resist the temptation to step away from ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) commitments, or drop impact-driven business models. Instead, they must double down on sustainable, long-term strategies that create both profit and positive change.
Rather than dwelling on the alarming consequences of these funding cuts (which many commentators are documenting well), I want to underscore why this moment demands a shift.
From my work in sustainability consulting, business partnerships, and initiatives with CARE, I’ve identified the following key trends shaping this transformation.
The Rise of Impact-Driven Partnerships
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Southeast Asia has long been philanthropy-driven, with companies donating to social causes without embedding impact into their core business. That’s shifting.
While there’s still a place for sponsorships, more businesses now see the value in long-term, strategic partnerships with NGOs and social enterprises. CARE has always been my “go-to” on this, for examples of the innovations used to secure “win-win” partnerships with corporations – I’ve listed their collaborations over the years with the likes of Barclays, Allianz and GSK as just a few examples.
In Southeast Asia, many other organisations have worked collaboratively with companies. World Vision & Procter & Gamblein the Philippines, for example, ran a Hope in Garbage project, which collected3.2 million plastic sachets and 870,000 plastic bottles, upcycling them into 1,040 chairs for schools – a great model for sustainability and education impact.
Bangkok’s booming private sectorBangkok’s local business networks
Here in Vietnam, The East Meets West Foundation, also known as ‘Thrive Networks’, partnered with GE Healthcare to enhance healthcare infrastructure leading to the development of medical institutions, and the provision of custom-designed equipment to hospitals, aimed at improving neonatal care and reducing infant mortality rates.
Even in industries like apparel, where brands once relied on short-term worker welfare programs, we now see the co-development of ethical supply chains with sustainability organizations. CARE and the ILO’s early 2000s work laid a lot of the foundations for this, and entities now, such as RISE, are pushing ethical supply chain development even further as result.
Where to from here? To me, the answer is clear. Organizations – NGOs, especially – engaging with the private sector need to move beyond sponsorship requests and, instead, position themselves as strategic partners that bring business value, through such things as innovation, market access, or risk mitigation.
The Shift from Compliance to ESG-Driven Business Models
ESG factors are becoming a competitive advantage, rather than a regulatory burden. Investors, consumers, and governments are increasingly pressuring businesses to embed sustainability into their operations. The result of which is that large corporations are developing ESG frameworks, not just to comply with regulations, but to attract investors and gain consumer trust.
And with this trend, we are seeing multinationals now pushing sustainability requirements down their supply chains, impacting SMEs and local businesses.
Quezon City, Metro Manila – Photo @timbishop
Governments in our region are also starting to integrate ESG into investment policies and corporate reporting frameworks. Both Vietnam and Indonesia, for example, highlight ESG in financial reporting, investment strategies, and regulatory frameworks.
As ESG gains traction, the non-profit world can play a more prominentrole in ensuring businesses go beyond compliance to create real social and environmental impact. NGOs can add value by training smaller companies on ESG compliance, reporting, and sustainable business models, and also facilitating partnerships that ensure corporate ESG aligns with local needs. There is also room for NGOs to play a role in accountability, monitoring ESG commitments, preventing greenwashing, and pushing for stronger corporate governance.
The Growth of Market-Based Solutions & Inclusive Business Models
Lastly, one of the most exciting trends I think Southeast Asia is experiencing, is the rise of businesses integrating social impact into their core revenue models. Rather than treating sustainability as a cost center, companies are developing commercially viable solutions that also drive impact.
As such “circular economy” models are emerging, particularly in sectors like textiles, packaging, and agriculture. Whilst social enterprises are scaling through corporate partnerships, blending business growth with community impact.
I saw this firsthand as early as 2007, when I worked on CARE’s rural sales initiative in Bangladesh – a project that later spun off as JITA, itself a stand-alone social enterprise in 2012. Since then, the region has only expanded its approach, with more companies exploring inclusive business models that drive both profit and impact.
These ventures, requiring businesses to engage with underserved communities, need cross-sector expertise, opening up opportunities for collaboration between the private sector, NGOs, and impact investors. Organizations that can align their business goals with market-based impact solutions will, in my opinion, have a stronger case for funding and growth partnerships.
Where to Next?
Private sector engagement in Southeast Asia is no longer an option in my view – it’s a necessity. With aid funding brutally slashed, ESG becoming mainstream, and political pressure mounting against corporate social commitments, businesses and impact organizations must collaborate in smarter, more strategic ways.
In the face of backlash against DEI, we must recognize that ESG, sustainability, and inclusive business aren’t just about good optics – they are about long-term business resilience, risk management, and innovation.
Businesses should move beyond compliance and integrate ESG and impact into their core strategy, rather than retreating from it. Whilst NGOs must stop just chasing sponsorships and become strategic partners that offer value.
The opportunity is there for the taking. The question is: who’s ready to lead, and who will fall behind?
Moving Forward. Galle, Sri Lanka – Photo @timbishop
My apologies upfront if you arrived at this post under the impression it would offer up relationship advice. Instead, I’m here to discuss the increasingly common pursuit of Cross-Sector (in particular, business and non-profit) Partnerships, and where they often run into trouble.
In many ways, looking closer at what makes for a successful individual relationship (be it with your manager, your partner or anyone else for that matter) is no bad place to start when it comes to establishing what it takes to maintain decent Cross-Sector Partnerships.
As explored in last month’s post there are some fairly stock conditions and behaviours that characterise good partnering – suitable preparation, clear communications, mutually beneficial goals, openness, honesty and regular evaluation, being just a handful of examples.
Let’s assume, then, that doing the opposite to any of these conditions is immediately going to put your partnership into more perilous scenarios. None of these conditions on their own are necessarily deal-breakers or deal-makers. But, combined, they will provide a robust framework from which to explore and experiment.
So, given an understanding of the types of conditions which are optimal for partnering, what might be some of the more subtle tell-tale signs that your partnership is, in fact, headed for the rocks? Here are some to contemplate:
#1 Early onset Complacency Syndrome.
Each partnership between a business and a non-profit (let’s stick with these two types of organisation, although the rules are relevant for other sector combinations) has it’s own unique context. If we assume that both organisations have done their research upfront, are partnering towards a shared goal, and have made initial investments of resources into the partnership, it doesn’t then always follow that the rest of their partnering experience will unfold as planned.
A symptom to look out for, that can often be traced right back to the early stages, is that of complacency. In my experience, particularly where funding is involved, complacency can occur on both sides.
On the side of the business partner (typically funding the non-profit in some way) there can be an instinctive sense of entitlement. This is, perhaps, unavoidable but still worthy of note. Many relationships that a business manages include those where that business is paying for something. Albeit with an agency or with a supplier, a business and its employees can have a subconscious expectation that they are in the driving seat because it is their money enabling things to happen. If they want a meeting at short notice, or they cancel a meeting at short notice, that isn’t to be taken as disrespectful, because they are the funding entity, so they are allowed to call the shots.
On the side of the non-profit, the side most likely receiving funds, another form of complacency can emerge. Again, this isn’t always the case, but I’ve seen non-profits, who are under pressure for funds, sign “partnership” agreements with corporate donors and, once the ink is dry on the contract, the non-profit moves onto the next funding target.
The over-arching point here comes down to discipline. Whatsoever your reasons for engaging with another entity – in a relationship that you are labeling a “partnership” – it is not good enough, nor sustainable, to take anything for granted. If the fit between two organisations is honest and meaningful then, as with any of the relationships in your life to which you place value, the act of being a complacent partner will hopefully not materialise, nor be accepted.
#2 – Nurturing your Partner’s “Value-Add”.
Let me caveat that “Value-Add” is jargon. An overly-hyped phrase, it flies off the tongue at most Partnership Conferences or workshops these days. However, beneath the jargon lies a revealing symptom.
Companies who partner with non-profits, or with public sector organisations, are increasingly being asked to demonstrate their Value-Add, when it comes to helping address societal issues. A social development organisation seeking to partner with a business is under pressure to do the same. Indeed, worthy Cross-Sector Partners will identify what their Partnership brings, as a combined team. Those in the partnership will articulate what is often referred to as a “Value Proposition” even, and spend weeks and months refining this together.
When done well, taking a systematic approach to Value Addition – in our example, this translates as two organisations clearly spelling out what it is they want to achieve together, how they will be successful, and why their partnership stands out from others – can reap dividends for all involved, and deliver great outcomes for the partnership.
Are your Partnerships built for learning or do they rely on jargon and platitudes?
However, I’ve seen lip service approaches taken by organisations when it comes to recognising each other’s contributions and, as a result, not then taking steps towards helping evolve and nurture these contributions.
Organisations, particularly large ones, tend to be internally focused, strapped for time, complicated to navigate, and highly political. For those managing partnerships, there is simply not always the requisite amount of bandwidth, in one’s typical day, to spend that critical time learning more about the organisations with whom you are partnering.
This, it seems to me, is a missed opportunity. How might an organisation ever truly partner with another if that learning component is never fulfilled?
To be clear, partnering with another organisation doesn’t mean you can’t disagree with something they are doing (or have done) and it definitely shouldn’t mean you can’t call out bad practice. On the contrary, some of the companies partnering NGOs are seeking that very regular and wholesome critique from the NGOs they partner. Certain companies even evaluate their partnerships based on an NGO’s ability to do just that.
And, yet, the majority of organisations aren’t prepared to invest the time and resources to learn from each other, and learn about each other’s industry.
Which has never made sense to me, given the most rational case for establishing a Cross-Sector Partnership in the first place should be the realisation that your organisation’s goals cannot be achieved unless you work with other entities (and particularly those who bring skills and knowledge to the table that you don’t have).
Without fulfilling a commitment to explore what your differences are, and how you can compliment each other (and, over time, make each other a more rounded and robust outfit) organisations run the risk of simply partnering for partnerships’s sake.
#3 – Owning your Mistakes.
In the realm of Cross-Sector Partnerships there is a narrative shaped around what that partnership is doing (or intends to do) which often relies on a heavy dose of positive public relations. CEOs will pepper a conference speech with crowd pleasing intentions. New brand campaigns are created in the process. Press releases fly about social media. A hashtag is born. And so things escalate.
Behind the scenes, however, Cross-Sector Partnerships are reliant on individual relationships between multiple people. What can happen in the furor of a new Partnership is that individuals become carried away with the compelling narrative, and impermeable to doing wrong. And one thing we know about human relationships is that it’s doesn’t always come naturally to people to accept responsibility for things when they go wrong. This is particularly evident inside the workings of an externally published partnership, high off of its own sense of self-worthiness, and all that it has set out to accomplish.
When things go wrong in a partnership, all too often one side will blame the other (either directly or covertly). It can then be a cumbersome, and ultimately fatal, process continuing the partnership in the wake of an episode where individuals have thrown each other under the proverbial bus.
Much can be done to prevent this from happening (again, the importance of giving due consideration upfront about the nature of a partnership, or then advocating clear ways of working as the partnership progresses, are two such examples). Although the true test lies in people’s commitment to learning and to improving both their own practices and behaviours, as well as that of their respective organisations.
Doing so requires courage, some risk taking and a sharp sense of what it means to do the right thing.
I am sure many examples can be thrown back in my face of situations where organisations did the very opposite of the right thing, burying bad news stories or unethical practice, and lived to tell the tale.
Equally, I have my anecdotes of where my own handling of a sticky situation with a partner organisation was conducted in a way that protected my team from receiving just blame. Regretfully, there are probably more than one of these to recount.
And yet, I am convinced of the fact that Cross-Sector Partnering would be more impactful, with more sustained and productive outcomes, were we to work harder at trusting each other, and owning our mistakes and the times where we might have misjudged a situation. Easier, of course, to say than to live out, but we must try.
So, there you have it.
My three Tell-Tale signs to look out for when embarking on serious Cross-Sector Partnerships, and which apply to you and your partner organisation:
Relationship Complacency;
Not investing in each other’s Value Addition; and
The inability to accept that Everyone Makes Mistakes, from which we can all learn.
Getting the best out of your Partnerships: Investing upfront, learning to work differently, and telling your story!
Whether you are a business or a non-profit entity, it will not have escaped your attention that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals prioritised what they refer to as “the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development”. It is their 17th Goal, and it largely focuses around the role that large institutions together play to address social and environmental issues, on such topics as trade, technology (eg population internet access) and remittances.
However, their use of the word “partnership” is taken from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which also coveted the practice. In turn, some of the even earlier commitments, in particular to cross-sector partnering, were coined at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. In the 28 years since that event, the act of organisations partnering together to achieve common goals has become mainstream parlance in the world of sustainability. Which has meant, a lot of the time, the true definition of what it means to partner has become lost in the melee, and the word is bandied about as a “catch-all” phrase and, unfortunately, much of the time used incorrectly.
Keeping abreast of how cross-sector collaborations have evolved over the past 15 years, I have recently launched a consultancy – http://www.coracleconsulting.net – that helps broker cross-sector partnerships, and build the skills required to implement these effectively.
It seems to me that there are some fundamental principles to how a good partnership between different types of organisations can be established, implemented and then (hopefully) scaled and sustained.
Here, then, for those readers interested, is an indicative list of 4 Top Tips that I would suggest can enhance the quality of cross-sector partnerships:
#1 – Upfront investment in appropriate Partnership Resources. On too many occasions I’ve seen organisations launch partnerships together without duly auditing what their respective resource investments were in advance. The types of resources to which I’m referring include: human capital; financial; senior leadership buy-in; R&D; measurement systems; and internal and external communications plans.
In the scenario where a large corporation has decided to form a partnership with an international NGO, I see there to be several “must do” components to this that, if left out, will compromise the outcomes of the partnership. These components would include the following:-
Having an approved a partnership budget; Agreeing to necessary time allocations from team members to staff the actual work; Engaging respective Senior Leadership (and ideally the CEO) in signing off the intentions of the partnership; Giving due thought and budget to conducting research into the partnership objectives and activities; and, finally, paying due consideration to communicating internally and externally about the partnership as it progresses.
Each of these components requires resourcing and needs to be planned upfront, or else the partnership will fall at the first hurdle.
#2 – Learning to cede control of different pieces of the Partnership and to embrace new ways of working. Cross-sector partnering is a two-way affair, on every level. It can be all too easy for companies and non-profits not to appreciate the different organisational norms to which they respectively adhere. “Unlikely bedfellows” was a phrase used to describe the corporate sector, many years ago when I set up a new team inside of an international NGO. My team was responsible for building partnerships with big business and many of my colleagues did not approve of us engaging with companies – many, today, are still not convinced by it either.
Actually making a successful, mutually beneficial partnership between two organisations, who live and breathe very differently, is no mean feat. Success, then, lies in how each might change their habits. For companies, this might be ceding control of full decision making on issues where (with suppliers or agencies, for example) they might usually have the final say. For NGOs, accepting that a long-term collaboration with a corporation will need to support the profit targets of that company, in addition to the social or environmental ones, can be a harder sell to all NGO staff than you’d think.
#3 – The human face of a partnership is crucial, but without the right systems in place, things will unravel. In the sustainability world, whether you are an NGO employee seeking to engage a retail company around ethical sourcing, or a corporate procurement specialist, looking for a local non-profit expert to help with your company’s gender strategy, your personality is often the very first thing that gets you off and running.
An organisation’s human capital is by far one of their biggest assets when it comes to forging and maintaining cross-sector partnerships. That said, it is not uncommon for organisations to make an individual’s roles over-whelming and untenable, by putting them in charge of all the different partnership responsibilities. Too much pressure on one pair of shoulders is not wise.
What many partnering organisations do well, not only to more subtly adjust and improve the quality of their partnerships but also to remove the weight of the burden on their staff, is to set up robust and practical ‘systems’ for partnering. These start with due diligence processes, when choosing a partner, and finish with rigorous surveying of the partnership at different stages. By creating systems that guide organisations on each aspect of partnering, you are signalling that your partnering intentions and commitments are legitimate, and that you are not falling into the trap of partnering for the sake of it.
#4 – Celebrating Partnership successes helps raise the bar for wider industry and Sustainability Goals. With your upfront investments and research completed, your partnering systems set up and your experiences underway (as well as your own organisation slowly responding to some new ways of working because of that) then my last tip is to ensure a space for sharing out your achievements and the organisational learning you’ve gleaned about cross-sector work. Hopefully, by this stage of your partnering – reflecting on the trajectory you and your team have been on – you will be able to log several “wins”.
To be a solid partnering organisation over the long term, will mean conforming to a set of values and behaviours. Typically, these tend to be positive ones. Examples being: being honest and open; being a clear communicator; seeing perspectives from different sides; taking risks when trying new things; analysing what went wrong; and having an attitude of wanting to improve the nature of one’s partnership. Much like with any relationship, different organisations will find some of these harder than others.
In my opinion, however, one of the missed opportunities with cross-sector partnerships is when organisations don’t share out their ideas and experiences, and aren’t then contributing to consistently increasing the bar of quality on the practice of partnering more generally. There are multiple ways of telling your industry, or your supply chain, or your opposite number at a rival company, your partnering story.
Without these stories, we simply will not evolve the art form of partnering, which will mean our collective sustainability efforts will go to waste.
I’ve been working in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste (East Timor) this week, and it’s been a privilege as always to spend time in new surrounds. More so when stationed one hundred metres from the sea, with spectacular daily sunsets, and some of the tastiest coffee money can buy.
Timor is an island, just a short hop north of Darwin, Australia, and up until quite recently, following 500 years of Portuguese occupation, was an Indonesian colony (between 1975 and 1999). The western side of the island is still governed by Indonesia. Timor-Leste claimed its independence in 2002.
Like so many other countries in 2016, Timor-Leste is experiencing the effects of the current El Nino droughts, disrupting the country’s wet season and ruining harvesting potential. A topic covered on this site back in March during my time in Ethiopia.
My assignment this week, however, has been to support CARE’s work to engage more with private sector companies in Timor-Leste (banks, retail, media and others) and examine ways in which, together, initiatives and relationships can be forged to tackle some of the social and economic challenges the country faces – poor infrastructure, lack of employment opportunities, issues around food security and nutrition, financial literacy, to name a few. Even without a more severe El Nino year, Timor-Leste is dealing with all of these mini crises combined. Continue reading “Making change happen: Collaboration, and the power of Storytelling”→
I’m back on the regional conference circuit at the moment, and it’s awash with talk about “scale” and “impact”.
Sound-bite central, indeed, with events I’ve attended recently also still obsessing with how to achieve scale and impact by working in “partnerships”. As suggested in my last post we need to look beyond semantics in the sustainability arena, and instead get real about what some of these terms actually mean as, all too often, our preoccupation with the vernacular distracts us from action.
The UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have included “global partnerships” as their 17th Goal. The proof of authenticity around what the UN thinks can be achieved with this Goal will be revealed over time. However, right now, it seems to me that if you are not talking about “scaling your programmes”, or “measuring the impact” of your efforts (in terms of playing a positive role in society) then you are not “on message” – and that, for many, is a public relations cardinal sin. Continue reading ““Scale, impact and partnerships” – seeing through the buzz factor”→
Over the last couple of months I’ve spent time at various “partnership” themed events. Bangkok, Singapore, Hanoi, even the leafy outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, many thousands of miles away from the hustle bustle of Saigon. Different venues, but similar take-away recommendations about how, if we are truly to tackle social and environment issues and bring about change in the future, for the future, we must join forces with others.
In some cases, forming alliances which might seem oxymoronic: for example, big business in partnership with local communities; municipal governments working with large NGOs.
Previous case studies on this blog site (where CARE is partnering with companies in the region, including GSK and Diageo) are backed up by hundreds more out there, many of which are breaking new ground and offer hope for replicating models which others can adopt, adapt and improve. Continue reading “Partnership musings at 33,000 ft”→
And so to Singapore last week, for CARE’s third successive experience of partnering the annual “Sharing Value Asia” Forum – this year attracting a 30% uplift in delegates since the 2013 event, and focusing on what is becoming a fast emerging consensus around how the “Power of Many” may yet be our best ticket to solving some of the region’s pressing social and environmental dilemmas.
I have written before about “cross-sector” collaboration and partnerships. About forging alliances with shared objectives where the private, public and NGO sectors can work together, realising mutually beneficial outcomes.
The ‘interwoven’ nature of CARE’s approach to development
Last week I was in Islamabad, supporting the efforts of the CARE International team there, who have led a very successful set of engagements with the private sector to address social issues in Pakistan. In a country beset by a number of political and social tensions, CARE have decided to flip the traditional paradigm of not seeing what companies “can do for us” but, instead, what “CARE can do for business”. A bold move, and one which is so far paying dividends.
Whilst you can still find ardent members of the international climbing fraternity hacking their way precariously through road blocks and using unofficial routes, to climb some of the country’s spectacular mountain ranges, it is common enough knowledge now that Pakistan’s tourism industry is far from booming. Continue reading “What can CARE do for business?”→
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