The country’s first and largest private sector-led social development organization is touting a platform of collective effort among the corporate sector, government, and other investors and stakeholders as an innovative business solution to eradicate poverty in the country.
The corporate-led Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) dubbed this new strategy as “Platforms for Collective Engagements,” or PlaCEs, with the aim of scaling up successful private-public partnership (PPP) models primarily in the areas of health, education, livelihood, and the environment.
Rafael C. Lopa, PBSP executive director, said a concrete translation of the PlaCEs strategy was already seen in the launch of the Bayanihang Pampaaralan (BP) campaign, a collaboration of PBSP, the League of Corporate Foundations (LCF), the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd), and other advocates of education reform in the country.
Lopa said this collective effort had set the goal of building 10,000 classrooms nationwide to help bridge the classroom backlog of over 66,000 classrooms of the Department of Education (DepEd).
“It is in these PlaCEs where we hope to mobilize strategic financing from our members and donor agencies that can pave the way to more dynamic and coordinated multi-stakeholders partnerships,” Lopa said.
Given the positive response in the education-related PlaCE, the establishment of other PlaCEs is being pursued in the other PBSP focus areas of health, environment protection, and livelihood and jobs generation, Lopa added.
“Beyond our collective action strategy, we will keep on working closely with companies to take social development at the heart of their businesses by integrating core business solutions to development efforts, and providing policy and advocacy platforms for social change,” Lopa stressed.
Moreover, he said the PlaCES strategy will underscore efforts to establish PPP models, specifically in the delivery of public services and the development of infrastructure that would spur social development and improve climate change adaptation.
On the recent commemoration of its 41st year, PBSP has further strengthened its efforts with the business sector in reaching out to the country’s marginalized sectors.
“To truly effect collective impact, we saw the need to ensure that every program must have a common goal, a cohesive strategy, and a uniform parameter that synchronizes all the efforts of the business sector and other development stakeholders. Certainly, the sum is greater than the parts,” Lopa said.
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