Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP) on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the aim to conduct research and evidence-based interventions for strengthening social protection services particularly in testing times.
Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, the Executive Director of SDPI, said that the informal charity and philanthropy are critical in protecting people from economic shocks and can provide relief to the vulnerable communities when the state resources are constrained or can not reach in time. Both the institutions are eager to find research and evidence-based philanthropic and social delivery interventions, he said and added that there is a need to prevent thinning out of resources and increase the efficacy of such efforts. He stressed the need for finding solutions to increase engagement of private sector in social delivery and channelizing their CSR and ESG agendas.
Dr. Suleri further said that with the arrival of Ramadan, stocking and profiteering will rise which can undermine the philanthropic efforts and turn it into a zero-sum game. He maintained that such challenges call for strengthening collaboration between organizations like SDPI and PCP which are pivotal to find pragmatic solutions for policy makers and private sector.
Shazia Maqsood, the Executive Director of PCP, said Pakistan is an extremely generous nation, but there is no data available to verify and support this claim. She stressed the need for evidence-based research and data to support such claims and drawing comparisons with developed countries in terms of GDP to philanthropy ratio. She added that the private sector and informal charity mobilize and reach affected communities swiftly and well before public social protection in the advent of climate disasters. She urged the authorities to simplify the regulatory environment and ensuring ease of doing good just like ease of doing business to create a conducive environment for social delivery organizations.
She further urged the government to adopt a risk-based approach to facilitate social delivery organizations to provide relief to the vulnerable communities as adopting a single approach for all has done more damage than good.
