The Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture (PAPLRA) (2019) argued that ‘land reform must be oriented around growing the agricultural sector to foster economic development, and not purely be an endeavour to transfer land’. Land reform should contribute to rural standards of living and national economic growth. The chapter briefly examines the relative success of commercial agriculture in recent years, despite policy and climatic uncertainties. It then explores challenges faced in smallholder agriculture and argues that joint ventures and partnerships may be one effective route for intensification of production and enhancement of rural incomes. In a context where state funding and capacity is limited, involvement by commodity organisations and private sector groupings, as well as NGOs, provides a promising way forward. It is possible to expand opportunities for commercial agriculture at the same time as drawing on skills and capital for land reform. Inputs, marketing routes and connectivity are important elements in enhancing smallholder production. Examples are taken from sugar, wool, fruit and dairy schemes that have absorbed tens of thousands of participants.

This chapter focuses on how to explore opportunities to partner with families in articulating support systems for child health and wellbeing. In particular, it explores how student educators and educators can reach out to families and develop the necessary partnerships to successfully support parents in their parenting and caring roles, with the aim of positively influencing children’s family lives, health and wellbeing.

Home to 60 per cent of the world’s population, Asia is the locus for significant global challenges such as the future of work, gender inequality, inequitable access to health care, and climate change. For these entrenched socio-economic challenges, the time is ripe for philanthropist and philanthropic capital to taking a leading role in addressing and resolving these issues. Connecting like-minded individuals and building bridges to collaboration is one of the core functions of ecosystem builders like the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN). Since its founding in 2011, AVPN has grown into Asia’s largest social investment network, with over 600 members active across 33 markets. It has incubated several successful partnerships, but the journey has not always been smooth sailing. As the network has grown and evolved, so has its value proposition and role in the community. This chapter shares some of the lessons AVPN has learned in its journey to become an inclusive, responsive, and resilient ecosystem builder for philanthropy in Asia. It calls on philanthropists to build more intentional partnerships with ecosystem builders to facilitate more long-term, sustained change on the ground. The chapter points out that sector intermediaries should seek out opportunities to support philanthropists in building the community – the best way to resolve systemic development issues – rather than work alone.

This chapter describes the initiative launched by YTL Foundation at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to address remote learning during lockdown and school closure in Malaysia. It discusses the context of the Malaysian education system at the time and the challenges faced by teachers, parents, and students to ensure continuity in learning from home. Malaysia is a young nation and one that is seeking to establish itself as an example of a dynamic melting pot of Asian cultures that has grown out of its colonial past and embraced the global economy. As the wealth of the country has increased, there has been a growing awareness since the early 2010s that investment in a vibrant social sector is necessary to address the inequalities that often accompany rapid economic growth. This chapter showcases the solution developed for education that comprised providing smartphones, data, and learning resources that are delivered through partnerships to create a solution for low-income students. This solution was rolled out through partnership with the government, thereby demonstrating how such philanthropic interventions can be scaled up exponentially. The uniqueness of the solution in engaging parents is highlighted as an important feature. The chapter concludes by exploring some of the early measurable impact on the community and discusses the elements necessary for building resilience into the Malaysian education ecosystem in a future where hybrid education will be the norm.

Chapter 5 puts the reconfiguration of Pacific Asia into global perspective in four respects. First, in contrast to the divergences that characterized the modern era, in this century there has been a multi-dimensional convergence between developed and developing countries. 2008 marked the first time since the nineteenth century that the production of the developing world was greater than that of the developed world. Second, the unipolar world order of the post-Cold War has shifted to a multinodal world order. Without a defining global power, the multinodal order has a “certainty vacuum” rather than a power vacuum, and it is best filled by partnerships rather than by alliances. Third, Pacific Asia has become a global powerhouse. In 2020 its GDP equaled that of the US and the EU combined, and it is integrated by global value chains. Fourth, China reaches beyond its region. Despite the headwinds of Covid-19, trade bottlenecks, and global tensions, China and Pacific Asia have arrived. If a bipolar configuration develops, it is likely to differ from the Cold War camps by being closer to a developed/developing country split, with less unity of leadership on either side.

Companies engage in sustainability partnerships as a way to address complex social and environmental challenges that exceed the coping capacity of single organisations, even societal sectors (public sector, corporate and civil society). In this chapter, we examine corporate engagement in such sustainability partnerships along the questions of ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘why’ and ‘with whom’. We further guide you through the different stages of the partnering process and suggest critical questions to ask and best practices to consider. We address the key challenges involved and also look at the potential dark side of sustainability partnerships, before we close this chapter by exploring which individuals skills will help you successfully engage in these partnerships.

Chapter 5 turns to the economic sphere, with special attention to the emergence of the modern economic corporation, as a competitor par excellence. I examine its origins in medieval antecedents, how post-revolutionary US was the ideal environment for its initial cultivation and elaboration, and its subsequent development in Europe and beyond. The economic firm is in many ways the ‘ideal type’ of the modern corporate actor, but I am concerned to show in the next two chapters that new corporate actors in the political and ideological/cultural spheres are also crucial to the general domestication of competition in liberal societies.

Community-based undergraduate research (CBUR) engages students as learners in research partnerships with community members, groups or agencies, for the purpose of identifying or solving community issues or effecting social change. This chapter explores the roles of the various parties in CBUR, which include, besides students and community, faculty and university managers. It is illustrated with three case studies: the University of British Columbia in Canada, which integrates CBUR with undergraduate learning; the city of Christchurch in New Zealand, where it is used to advance the process of post-earthquake recovery; and Luneburg in northern Germany, which has established a transdisciplinary CBUR programme between the city and university to encourage urban sustainability. In conclusion, future opportunities and challenges for both students and faculty in developing CBUR are discussed.

Throughout the chapter, we engage with content that considers the benefits of fostering literacy engagement in the home and how effective parent and caregiver engagement will occur when a school culture is based on trust and open communication. The chapter discusses how school settings can go about developing a positive learning culture that supports all cohorts of parents and caregivers specific to a school context.

The chapter then explores the wider education department organisation of literacy support networks, including working with professionals such as speech pathologists and school-based literacy specialists. It considers the more recent English/literacy specialisation for graduate teachers. The content also considers the role of school-based libraries and other external community networks such as homework clubs.