Asia Science Mission - Asia Impact Forum report

Asia Impact Forum Convenes Regional Leaders to Design New Architecture for Resilience Investment

Bangkok, Thailand - 25 February 2026

The inaugural Asia Impact Forum brought together 139 leaders from across government, science, finance, and community innovation to explore how Asia can move from fragmented pilot projects toward coordinated, mission-driven investment in resilience and sustainable development.

Convened by the Asia Science Mission, an initiative led by the International Science Council and Future Earth, the Forum served as a strategic working dialogue on how science, policy, and finance can be aligned to address Asia’s most urgent socio-ecological risks. The event was co-organized with Thailand Ministry of Higher Education PMU-B, Future Earth Thailand and supported by the International Science Council Regional Focal Point for Asia and Pacific.

Photo: Participants at the Asia Impact Forum in Bangkok discussing regional resilience investment pathways. Credit: Asia Science Mission

Participants included leaders in science, policy, finance, and community-led initiatives from Thailand and across the region. Among them were Nirawat Thammajak, Director of PMU-B Thailand; Athena Ballesteros, Climate Finance Specialist; Christopher Moore, Novelist and Philanthropist; His Excellency Faiyaz Murshid Kazi, Bangladesh Ambassador; Madhurima Sarkar-Swaisgood, Deputy Chief of the Section for Disaster Risk Reduction at UNESCAP; Toshiyuki Yamasaki, Director of the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research; Siwatt Pongpiachan, Professor at the National Institute of Development Administration and Future Earth Thailand; Todd Wassel, Country Representative for The Asia Foundation, Thailand; Chanutsakul Supirak, Director of the Policy and Planning Section, Strategy and International Cooperation Division, Department of Climate Change and Environment, Thailand; John Dore, Lead Specialist for Climate Resilience and Water Security at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; and Siwat Luangsomboon, Senior Vice President of Sustainability and Strategy at Kasikorn Bank. The Forum also welcomed representatives from the Japan Science and Technology Agency, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and several philanthropic organizations.

Rather than focusing on pledges or project announcements, the Forum examined a deeper structural challenge: why investment in resilience across Asia remains slow despite strong science, innovation, and capital availability.

Participants explored how catalytic science (science designed to reduce uncertainty and inform investment decisions) can help bridge the gap between research, policy, and large-scale financing.

Nirawat Thammajak, D.Phil., Director of the Program Management Unit for Frontier Brainpower and Future Industries (PMU-B)

Christopher Moore, Novelist

His Excellency Faiyaz Murshid Kazi, Ambassador of Bangladesh to Thailand

Madhurima Sarkar-Swaisgood, Deputy Chief of the Section for Disaster Risk Reduction at UNESCAP

Toshiyuki Yamasaki, Director of the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research

Siwatt Pongpiachan, Professor at the National Institute of Development Administration and Future Earth Thailand

Todd Wassel, Country Representative for The Asia Foundation, Thailand

Chanutsakul Supirak, Director of the Policy and Planning Section, Strategy and International Cooperation Division, Department of Climate Change and Environment, Thailand

John Dore, Lead Specialist for Climate Resilience and Water Security at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Moving Beyond Pilots Toward Mission Pathways

Photo: Amitaksha Nag, Program Director of the ASM–Sanjeevan initiative.

Across Asia, promising sustainability and climate initiatives often remain isolated pilots. A central focus of the Forum was how to connect these efforts into mission pathways that generate evidence, reduce risk, and enable scaling.

Demonstration initiatives presented at the Forum illustrated how this approach works in practice.In India, the Asia Science Mission is working with partners in Purulia, West Bengal, a drought-prone region where climate change has disrupted traditional ecological knowledge systems. The initiative reframes local environmental degradation as a systemic socio-ecological risk, integrating ecological restoration, livelihood diversification, social capital rebuilding, and policy engagement to create pathways toward long-term resilience.

In the Philippines, the Mount Pinatubo Region Resilience Escalator Strategy addresses the cascading impacts of volcanic sediment flows and typhoon activity that continue to reshape landscapes and livelihoods decades after the 1991 eruption. The project connects upstream sediment management, coastal ecosystems, and community adaptation through a “ridge-to-reef” systems approach linking science, policy, and investment.

“Mount Pinatubo’s is still erupting,” said Dr. Segundo Joaquin E. Romero Jr., who leads the Mount Pinatubo Region Resilience Escalator Strategy. “Its sediment plume remains a slow-motion disaster that silts rivers, kills mangroves and buries livelihoods decades later.”

These demonstration initiatives function as learning laboratories, generating the data and insights needed to guide future investment and policy decisions across similar contexts in the region.

Photo: Dr Segundo Romero leading the Mt. Pinatubo Region Resilience Escalator Strategy (MPRRES)

Bridging the “Middle Gap” in Climate and Resilience Finance

A recurring theme in the Forum was the “missing middle” between early-stage innovation and large-scale investment.

Impact finance specialists and policymakers highlighted that while funding often exists for early pilots or large infrastructure projects, critical stages of system diagnostics, data integration, and institutional coordination remain underfunded.

Experts emphasised that bridging this gap requires new forms of collaboration between public institutions, philanthropic capital, and private investment.

”We are not lacking capital…….resilience capital is stuck because… risk is not fully understood, and the impact cannot be properly measured.” said Siwat Luangsomboon from Kasikorn Bank, providing a commercial bank’s perspective on investment in adaptation projects.

"Philanthropy’s unique value proposition here is its ability to fund the foundational "mission science" that the market currently undervalues. I believe there is a role for philanthropy to support mission driven science, invest in high risk long term scientific research that will transform economies." said climate finance specialist Athena Ballesteros.

Photo above: Siwat Luangsomboon, Senior Vice President Sustainability and Strategy, Kasikorn Bank at Panel Session 2, Aligning Science, Policy and InvestmentPhoto below: Athena Ballesteros, Climate Finance Specialist at Keynote 1, Mission-Oriented Resilience Investment

Regional Data and Cross-Border Collaboration

Participants also stressed that many of Asia’s sustainability challenges, ranging from river basin management to air pollution and climate adaptation, are inherently transboundary.

Strengthening shared data systems, collaborative research platforms, and mission-oriented funding models were identified as priorities for the next phase of regional cooperation.

From Dialogue to a Regional Learning System

The Forum concluded that the primary barrier to resilience investment in Asia is not a lack of ideas or funding, but a lack of coordinated architecture connecting science, policy, finance, and field learning. Participants emphasised the need for a sustained regional platform that can:

Connect demonstration initiatives across countries
generate comparable data and diagnostics
Translate scientific learning into investment pathways
Align public, philanthropic, and private capital

Rather than a one-time meeting, the Asia Impact Forum is intended as the beginning of a continuing collaboration to build a mission-driven architecture for resilience investment across Asia.

Photo: Anik Bhaduri, Director of Asia Science Mission

“If fragmentation is the norm, integration is the solution. If uncertainty hinders investment in capital, we must analyze the current situation and share insights. If priorities are unclear, we must clarify them.”

Anik Bhaduri, Director of the Asia Science Mission (ASM), concluded the event by summarizing a strategic framework to address the barriers to resilience investment highlighted during the event.

About the Asia Science Mission

The Asia Science Mission is a regional initiative led by Future Earth under the umbrella of the International Science Council, to address Asia’s most pressing socio-ecological challenges through mission-driven collaboration.

By connecting scientists, policymakers, investors, and communities, the initiative aims to transform fragmented sustainability efforts into coordinated regional missions that generate scalable solutions for climate resilience, environmental sustainability, and human well-being.

Asia Science Mission Website

Related Resources

Media contact: Anik Bhaduri, a.bhaduri@asiasciencemission.org

The ASM is supported by the ISC Regional Focal Point for Asia and the Pacific, which is funded by the Australian Department of Industry, Science and Resources and led by the Australian Academy of Science. The five-year programme (2023-2028) is working to ensure that regional needs and priorities are adequately represented in the International Science Council’s global agenda on issues of major importance to both science and society.

Page updated

Report abuse