Philanthropy Summit Asia 2026The Nippon Foundation leads session on necessity of cross-sector collaboration to resolve social issues

The Philanthropy Asia Summit is one of Asia’s largest international conferences dealing with philanthropy and public-private sector cooperation for the resolution of social issues in Asia. This year’s event was attended by more than 2,500 people representing grant-making foundations, international organizations, nonprofit organizations, and other organizations from more than 60 countries and regions, primarily from Asia but also from regions including the Middle East and Africa. The main sessions were planned and managed by the Singapore-based nonprofit Philanthropy Asia Alliance (PAA). PAA was established with support from Temasek Trust, a public interest organization founded by Singapore’s state-owned investment company, Temasek Holdings, and holds international conferences and networking activities to build philanthropy networks across Asia and promote cross-sector collaboration.

The Nippon Foundation has been supporting persons with disabilities outside Japan since the 1990s. As social issues have become increasingly complex in recent years, it has also become increasingly important to cooperate across sectors including education, employment, health and medical care, and technology in the field of disability as well. Against this backdrop, this year the Foundation organized the session “Catalysts for Change: Cross-Sector Partnerships for Disability Inclusion in Southeast Asia” to discuss a broad range of partnership possibilities to promote disability inclusion in Southeast Asia. The session was moderated by a Foundation staff member and featured representatives of Indonesia’s Pijar Foundation, which works with The Nippon Foundation to support persons with disabilities, PT. Inovasi Disabilitas Indonesia (Hear Me), and the World Health Organization’s Regional Office for the Western Pacific, who discussed initiatives to promote inclusion of persons with disabilities in the areas of education, employment, and mental health. Roughly 100 people attended the session, including representatives from grant-making foundations, international organizations, nonprofit organizations, private-sector companies, and universities across Asia.

 Specific items of discussion included the history behind each organization’s entry into the field of disability inclusion, successes resulting from cross-sector collaboration, and issues involved in pursuing partnerships. The Q&A portion included questions like “How can AI be used in workplaces that employ persons with disabilities?”, leading to lively exchanges of opinions regarding new possibilities for collaboration in the field of disability inclusion.

Going forward, The Nippon Foundation will continue to work with various organizations from Japan and overseas to promote the creation of environments where everyone, regardless of whether or not they have a disability, can participate in society.