It is a huge l honour to be appointed as the next Chair of the British Asian Trust, a charitable foundation established, in 2007, by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. The charity is one of the pre-eminent organisations in its field, using innovative approaches such as social finance to tackle development challenges. The outgoing chair, Manoj Badale, has done an incredible job over the past 14 years. I would like to thank him for his service; he has expertly navigated the charity from inception. Manoj’s shoes will be large ones to fill, but I am looking forward to the challenge.
BAT works across all the major countries of South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, to make the greatest possible impact on those less fortunate. The region is home to almost 2 billion people – a quarter of the world’s population – but accounts for less than 5% of global GDP. Although significant progress has been made in improving economic prospects and life chances, we know that significant inequalities persist, with extremes of wealth and poverty existing side-by-side.
At BAT, we want to see South Asia free from poverty, where everyone can meet their full potential. Our work aims to maximise the support and impact of the diaspora communities living in the UK, who have always been incredibly generous in supporting worthwhile causes ‘back home’. However, the scale of the requirement and governance concerns have made many donors cautious in directing their charitable contributions. We therefore focus on some of the greatest challenges in the region and adopt international best practices and use pioneering approaches to maximise the impact of every pound, rupee or taka donated.
The programmes supported by BAT are focussed on five primary areas: education, livelihoods, anti-trafficking, mental health and conservation.
Education: we ensure poorer children have the opportunity of a successful and bright future by working to transform the quality of school education, improving standards of learning and introducing key life skills.
Livelihoods: we ensure vulnerable groups are economically empowered. By developing people’s skills, ensuring access to markets and investing in entrepreneurship, we increase their access to financial services and jobs.
Anti-trafficking: we ensure children are safe from trafficking by reducing their vulnerability to exploitation. We do this by strengthening civic support systems and providing survivors with good rehabilitation and care.
Mental health and Disability: we ensure that people with mental health issues can live a fulfilling life with dignity, by increasing access to appropriate services and by reducing stigma in the community.
Conservation: we help protect endangered species and their habitats by reducing human-wildlife conflict and promoting co-existence. This work has been greatly enhanced through our merger with the leading conservation charity, The Elephant Family
The work of BAT is driven by a powerful belief that traditional approaches to philanthropy and development, alone, will not solve the challenges of the region. We work in partnership with others to design and deliver programmes, raise funds and convene partnerships that combine new social finance tools, philanthropy and technology to deliver impact at scale. In particular, we focus on outcomes-driven programmes, so that we are delivering and measuring real change. An example of this ground-breaking approach is the $11 million Quality Education Development Impact Bond for India, which BAT helped to create and launch in 2018. It aims to improve the literacy and numeracy attainment of 200,000 disadvantaged children in primary schools. The bond is structured so that it pays for performance and the initial results are showing an outperformance on the educational metrics defined at the outset, which have been independently measured and evaluated. We have extended this approach to the provision of skills, especially for girls and young people, working with the National Skill Development Corporation of India on a $14.4 million Skills India Bond.
Aside from these longer-term programmes, we have launched emergency appeals during the pandemic to ensure that families across South Asia receive the food, medicine and critical essentials they urgently need to help them survive. For example, BAT’s Oxygen Appeal received tremendous support raising over £8 million from over 30,000 supporters and has subsequently converted into an India Recovery Fund to accelerate vaccinations, rebuild livelihoods and protect mental health, especially of children. Through the guidance of our in-country teams, local Advisory Councils and Board of Trustees, we do everything we can to remain cost-effective, accountable and make the greatest possible impact with the money entrusted to us.
As someone who has been fortunate to benefit from many positive life chances – whether educational or professional – I feel it is important to open doors of opportunity for others, especially to those most in need. I would therefore like BAT to continue to be bold and ambitious in delivering positive impact in the most creative ways, especially through using social finance to advance development across South Asia.
If you would like to find out more, or support British Asian Trust, then please visit: www.britishasiantrust.org
