Thank you.

When this is published, I want to click on it. [laughs]

Thank you so much. I’m grateful for your time.

Good.

I think we will love to keep you apprised about our continuing conversations with other policymakers in other countries. Let’s see if we can also, after Asia Tomorrow, publish some of the case studies that you talked about as well, on our platforms. I think that would be very useful.

That’s right. That’s right. It’s really exciting then to just see what else is developing but we’d like to explore just something more long-term about being able to bring the knowledge and experience of Taiwan to other parts of Asia. Likewise, to see if they have any interest and want ...

We actually partnered up on Asia Tomorrow. We have myself and another AVPN colleague will be speaking...

Yes.

Among all of these countries, actually, the background and the principles behind, as you say, tends to be generally more utilitarian, the degree in Australia and in India. Taiwan is an opportunity for a different kind of map.

Because when you think about the NABs that have been established now in Asia. There is Australia. There is Korea, India and Taiwan who potentially would want to set one up. I know they have been exploring in China. They’ve been exploring in Singapore.

Cost benefit and so forth.

Now that you’ve got the initiative on the part of the government to want to create an open culture and risk absorption culture, I think the pieces are good to move it forward. What would be useful is to identify an opportunity to say, "Let’s put theory into action." That ...

In different places the NAB formation takes different context. What we found that was really exciting, what was happening in Taiwan unlike in other places, is that there is actually very little competing agenda between different sectors. That’s actually a very fertile ground a NAB movement.

Very much. We’ve been working with different countries to see what else we can do to encourage a NAB type of a model, the creations of NABs. They tend to be the lead drivers in any form of innovation with respect to social finance and impact investments.

Thank you so much.

No. I think it’s a fascinating and very inspiring conversation.

Yeah, absolutely.

That’s good.

That’s a good opportunity. There was a question earlier about competitive bidding actually, about how to find the right service provider. It’s good that if the procurement environment allows that kind of possibility.

I understand.

That’s true. I think it’s a kind of modestly holder collaborative governance that we will hope to have, which should be inspired by an open approach to engender their trust. As you say, if nobody wants anything and everybody wants everything. It’s that kind of spirit. I think hopefully we’ll ...

True. That’s always a way to go around that. That’s good. It sounds like there’s already a lot of very good ingredients already there, particularly with respect to the presence of data, the role of the National Development Council, for example, and this data integration landscape.

From an all of government point of view, do you foresee, are there any other potential regulatory constraints that would have to be overcome to address some of what we talked about, in terms of these issues, education?

That would be great. To the extent that we can take the social impact bond journey to the next level, I think your suggestions earlier about where are the low-hanging fruits will be really valuable. I suppose if, in doing the discussions, we come across any potential challenges, we can ...

It’s so inspiring to hear about this. Thank you so much for sharing.

The first time ever, if you look at the agenda, they actually are dedicating a session to sustainable financing in cities. They are dedicating some sessions to inclusion, inclusive development. Compared to the last city summit agenda, you see so much more focus on that now. It’s really exciting.

That would be great. In fact, one of the things we may want to discuss internally is whether sustainable cities is a topic, if it’s something we can take to the next level. The world city summit is happening in Singapore again this year.

Yes.

We also want to be able to inspire some more innovative thinking on the part of how policy interacts with other sectors to address some of these issues. If I can email some of the information to you later on about that, it would be great for somebody from your ...

I’d like to extend an invitation also to someone in your office to join us, actually, at our conference. Our conference in June this year, we will be looking at a variety of issues that first of all, will be of interest in terms of where the social challenge is ...

We also are looking to then collate other more interesting innovative ways of using social finance to encourage innovation, like with impact models, particularly the ones that break down these silos and boundaries. We want to also gather examples both from Taiwan, but also from other countries in Asia. We ...

Exactly. I think what would be also really interesting is we can continue a pathologic exchange about some of the specific practical initiatives that have been piloted and tested. For example, we talked earlier in the workshop about sharing the case studies that were done on pay for success contracts.

They particularly focus there, because what happens is that, when they go to remote Indonesia, the national policymakers’ reaches are actually quite limited.

That would be great. For example, one of the foundations that we are interacting with in Indonesia today actually has a very dedicated program to build the competencies of city-level policymakers, so mayors, district governors, at that level.

That’s distinct from physical geography, is human geography, right?

Plus-minus a few hours.

What that effectively means is that therefore, there’s a particular way of doing things, a family of solutions that need to be aligned with the founders’ objectives. Now, we have an opportunity to actually explore something different. I think it’s worth exploring. I hope that we can maybe work with ...

Exactly, and particularly because the dynamics. To be practical, a lot of the dynamics comes from the fact that much of the developing countries of this region are getting their funding from US, Europe, and UK.

Compared to, say, Singapore, which is a colonial past. We have a lot of UK baggage with us as well. I think that would be a very interesting contrast to say, "Therefore, in a policy environment, what does this translate to, into actions?" We can take those policymakers to encourage ...

Maybe if there’s an interest, we could consider trying to create a platform for knowledge exchange, experience sharing between other different countries in Asia that are trying to do social innovation. That may be very unique thinking for someone coming from Thailand, given that they have that long history of ...

Having this kind of context to say that, "How can we leverage the unique cultural legacy of what drives Asia forward?" to then encourage that kind of social impact innovation something that I’d love to be able to share.

That being said, because there is this additional interest in social impact financing, in SDG investments, and in a lot more collaborative, collective models to want to deliver solutions to complex problems.

Recently, Nestor started their innovation policy accelerator with Southeast Asia. They were working with Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam. It’s quite closed right now. We don’t actually know how things are progressing.

It is. What I’m hoping that maybe we have an opportunity from AVPN’s perspective to work with your office on in the future is to actually try to disseminate and share a little bit more about this kind of thought leadership.

It reflects a particularly unique way that, our governance structure, right?

Is there something that is unique about the way that Asia does it? We really wanted to dive deep into this, because what you’re saying here about civic participation, about creating an environment of trust, about using data as not just a playground, but actually a lubricant to inspire more ...

There’s no real thought leadership about how can innovation come about, and what role can government play? We wanted to explore, actually, without having to rely on thought leadership coming from US, UK, and their particular form of government and civic engagement models.

We also know that policymakers can actually create and catalyze very enabling environments for other forms of impact and innovation to happen. Now, clearly in Asia, there’s a lot of exploration into that, because we’re all looking for innovative solutions.

I think it’s fascinating, because I was discussing this with Ray earlier, actually. AVPN has been working on the policymaker engagement for two reasons. One is that we know that policymakers are obviously mobilizing infinite amounts of resources in capital.

Because it affects their own time off as well.