A conversation with Saleem Khan, British Asian Trust on responding to the pandemic in India: It is difficult to forget the harrowing stories/scenes of patients dying for lack of oxygen in India earlier this year, when it was ravaged by the pandemic. A BBC report called it 'A nightmare on repeat'. It was heartening however, to see governments and businesses the world over step up to support India during this terrible crisis. Amongst those responded swiftly was the British Asian Trust that raised over £5 million for its 'Oxygen for India Emergency Appeal' with over 20,000 people donating. 

My guest on the 42nd Episode of The Elephant in the Room podcast is Saleem Khan, India Director of the British Asian Trust (BAT). In this episode we spoke about 

👉🏾 BAT's unique model of harnessing the diaspora for supporting the development work it does in South Asia

👉🏾 BAT's $11 million Education Development Impact Bond. And how impact bonds are innovative financial instruments to raise funding for the social sector

👉🏾 The continued funding squeeze on the social sector exacerbated by COVID and the role of innovation and collaboration in addressing the shortage

👉🏾 The changing expectations of donors and how quickly they have adapted to be more flexible/accommodating allowing programs to pivot to address the COVID crisis

👉🏾 Shifting focus of donors to end outcomes

👉🏾 India Recovery fund with a focus on 1) Increasing vaccine uptake 2) Sustainable Livelihoods 3) Supporting children orphaned due to COVID including their mental wellbeing

The conversation was uplifting and energising because Saleem is a glass half full kind of person. If you want to know more listen here 👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

Memorable passages from the episode

👉🏾 Lovely to be here Sudha and thanks for having me. 

👉🏾 It definitely was and you're right, I've spent more than a decade in Citibank and then close to seven years with a UK based private sector firm. And overall experience of more than two decades on the, private sector side.

I remember that phase, it was about six years ago where, you hit that phase in life where in your career, you've come to a point where your learning's just plateau and you don't tend to enjoy what you're doing really. So I needed to look at doing something different. And I wanted to, I started evaluating sectors, which are growing sector, sectors that I can apply my skills aptly and sectors which require those kinds of skills. And that's where, I identified the social sector and frankly for me, unlike most, it was not just the motivation of doing social good. It was the mix of being able to apply my private sector skills into an area or a sector which would really benefit out of it. So this was about six years ago and then social sector was considered to be like a retirement option, something that you'd take up, when you hang your boots. And people would call it like a Jholawala job where

👉🏾 In fact, when I took up this option that I had as well. I had people calling me and having serious conversations "what's wrong with you, what has happened?" Or some making jokes "Oh it seems like you've made a lot of money and then now you're just going to the world of social good". The sad part about the social sector is, one, at that point in time I thought there was some incredibly talented people, but there was a need for a lot of private sector talent, to come in and to work upon building that sector one. Two, it also was marred with this whole reputation that, in the social sector, you don't get paid at all. So you would take like huge salary cuts, will go into that job because you just want to give back to society, et cetera. And what I've seen changing over this last six years Sudha is a lot of that has really changed. One, there has been absolutely brilliant movement from the private sector to the development sector, after me I saw some amazing people who have joined the sector and people have come to realise that if you need good talent, you need to pay to get that talent. So a lot of that has also changed and that's leading in a lot more private sector talent coming into the development sector.

👉🏾 My motivation was to start with a new sector applying skills into that sector, but right now, I think it's incredibly motivating to be doing social good, supporting your country really making sure that development is happening and I've been fortunate to work with some incredible organisation in the sector as well.

👉🏾 So British Asian Trust actually was set up about 13 years ago by our founding patron, his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and members of the South Asian diaspora. And diaspora communities are people who have a South-Asian origin but currently do not reside in those countries. For example, Indians who are born in India who have an Indian origin, but do not currently live in India, but feel very very strongly about issues in India, want to come forward to support and to address this issue. So you're very right in saying that the British Asian Trust has actually done an incredible job of harnessing the support of the diaspora community. Our work is really talking for itself.

And you are already aware that British Asian Trust with the South Asia focus is currently working primarily in four countries, which is India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Just by the design of the fabric of India, the vibrancy of the social sector here, a large part of our work has remained in India. But all that at the back of the incredible support that we enjoy from the diaspora. 

👉🏾 Firstly, just to clarify impact bonds are not bonds that get listed or traded. They are a form of an innovative financial instruments, where investors come forward and provide flexible funding, which essentially acts like working capital to service providers to carry out interventions. Now, outcomes are pre-agreed and outcome targets are predetermined. There are outcomes funders are those who join the consortium and pay for the delivery of outcomes and they pay back the investors the working capital, with a fixed return on the delivery of the targets. 

👉🏾 The key here however to note is, that the funding involved is flexible and it allows service providers to focus on their delivery of the required outcomes without really worrying about reporting, activities, inputs, et cetera. So B.A.T actually brought together a consortium of investors and funders, for this education impact bond, which incidentally is the world's largest education impact bond.

👉🏾 It includes the Michael & Susan Dell foundation, Comic Relief, Mittals, BT and the investors here are UBS Optimus. It is an initiative which is bringing thousands of children from the communities in India, read and write better. And it's completed three years of the four years of the intervention and this included one year of the COVID challenge and is delivering excellent education outcomes. 

👉🏾 So B.A.Ts endeavour is actually to test out, new and innovative finance instruments and put out evidence to create this market in India. And I'm talking ahead of time but, currently we're at the helm of launching a similar initiative on the skilling side, which is going to be with the government of Indias' National Skills Development Corporation(NSDC). It is timely right now because of the COVID impact and the issue of unemployment in India. This particular initiative is going to bring thousands of unemployed youth of India actually, back into jobs. Help them stay in jobs and there is going to be a deep gender focus on this. The focus is going to be on women and girls really. It's a very very exciting initiative where the government is coming in for the first time into an innovative instrument like this, there is international capital partnering along with local CSR capital. So we'll be making that announcement very soon and we're hugely excited about this solution. 

👉🏾 That's absolutely true. Actually, a different kind of fundraising. And COVID, if at all has challenged the overall status quo. I mean traditional ways of fundings have been seriously challenged Sudha, right now. So it is time to innovate, it is time to partner, it's time to collaborate and come together and do large scale intervention. So that's what initiatives likes these are all about. 

👉🏾 So you're very right Sudha, COVID has definitely hit us hard and basically the overall sector has been significantly impacted and more specifically grass root organisations, where the situation is not looking very good. But let's look at the positives that the situation has currently brought. Firstly, the sector has come together closer and that has resulted into such strong collaborations. And collaborations are not easy, to form as you will agree. But we saw so many collaborators taking shape, it's continued to do absolutely brilliant work by complimenting on each other's strength, that's one. 

👉🏾 Secondly, innovation has come right to the centre of the table, traditional ways of funding, like I said earlier, like grants etc.... these have been seriously challenged and now innovative ways of fundings are being tested out. And most importantly, the government has been extremely forthcoming, right now. And as we saw in the last few months, forthcoming in having dialogues, they are wanting to see how they can partner with private capital to do longer-term impact work. And that is resulting into some brilliant public-private partnership, which is the best way for carrying out long term development work at scale and have also, with the government involved, you have answers for sustainability as well. So, all in all, I think it's worked out brilliant for the sector. The challenges have been there, but slowly I think we'll tide over to that and what we are left with at the road ahead is looking incredibly exciting. So I'd like to take a very positive lens to that Sudha. 

👉🏾 On donors, let me be frank, we witness donors being super flexible and accommodative off the COVID situation Sudha. Being flexible and allowing programs to be pivoted to the current situation and also flexibility of the usage of funding, which is so required. Many examples of donors, taking a pause on the programs and supporting organisations to sustain and tide through this situation. One thing I must highlight here is that that has definitely been a shift in mindset of donors. And that shift in mindset is they are now more open to focusing on the end outcomes and not really worry about tracking activities, inputs which traditionally was happening. 

👉🏾 So, for remaining relevant actually now to your other part of the question, organisations need to be able to make that shift as well. Shift of focusing on end outcomes and having flexible funding but also be comfortable with the fact that the funding will be applied only if the outcomes are delivered. So it's not an easy transition, for NGO's on the ground. In fact the British Asian Trust is actually currently driving a piece of work which working with on the ground NGOs to help them become outcomes ready as we call it. The initiative basically aims at building NGOs of the future who will be able to receive large scale multi-year funding with capacity and an understanding of delivering end outcomes really. So we are now currently testing this model out with a bunch of NGOs on the education side. But the whole idea is to really do this at scale and truly create NGOs of the future in India. 

👉🏾 You're very right. Firstly we had an excellent 'Oxygen for India' emergency appeal. It brought together thousands of individual donors, included trust foundations, corporates to support India and tide through the emergency situation with a very tight focus on oxygen, which was the key issue at that point in time. And as the situation has now improved we've started focusing on the recovery phase, and have launched the India Recovery Fund, which focuses on three key areas. 

👉🏾 Firstly increasing the vaccine uptake by building capacities of the government, so we have better reach to the rural and remote India, because the only long-term solution to this issue is vaccination, so there is a focus on vaccine uptake. Secondly, focusing on providing immediate and sustainable livelihoods to communities who've been severely impacted due to the current lockdown situation and huge loss of jobs, actually. And lastly, focus on children, children who've lost parents due to COVID and also focusing on the children of the communities, there are socio-emotional impact, focusing on their mental wellbeing, of our children. So these are the three areas of our focus. The support so far has been incredibly encouraging, and we hope that we continue to strengthen this intervention with more and more donors, including the diaspora coming forward to support this initiative as we take it forward.

👉🏾 Wow. Sudha as I mentioned earlier, truly there's no better time than now to be a part of this brilliant sector. The feeling of waking up every day and continuing this journey of supporting the development of our country and that with brilliant colleagues of the British Asian Trust is incredibly motivating and energising for me every day. So yeah that really keeps me going. And it's just the motivation of the work that you do and the satisfaction that you take back before you sleep every day, is a great feeling. 

👉🏾 Wonderful talking to you Sudha. Thank you very much.

Follow Saleem Khan on: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saleem-khan-73387774/?originalSubdomain=in

Twitter: @saleemkhan_73

Follow British Asian Trust: 

https://www.britishasiantrust.org/

Other important links: 

👉🏾 https://www.britishasiantrust.org/support-us/bat-insights/oxygen-for-india-with-he-alex-ellis-nachiket-mor-dr-ajay-nair-saleem-khan-and-farzana-baduel/

👉🏾 https://www.britishasiantrust.org/support-us/india-recovery-fund/

👉🏾 https://www.dtnext.in/News/TopNews/2021/06/11195644/1300328/London-cycling-event-to-raise-funds-for-Covid-relief-.vpf

👉🏾 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56909285