AMCHAM’s CSR Committee held a meeting under the leadership of Mr. Harish Krishnan, Chairman – CSR Committee, AMCHAM and Managing Director & Chief Policy Officer, Cisco Systems (India) and Mr. Ankur Malhotra, Co-Chairman – CSR Committee, AMCHAM and Director – Corporate Affairs & CSR, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India on August 23rd in Gurugram (hybrid). Mr. Harish Krishnan set the tone for the meeting highlighting the purpose of the committee as sharing best practices and trends, discussing challenges, and looking for ways to synergize and work together. Ms. Sangita Patel, Director – Health Office, USAID/India, in her address, shared about some of USAID’s health initiatives, in connection with the Indian government, in the areas of tuberculosis, comprehensive primary health, critical care, infectious diseases, COVID and much more. She encouraged corporates to work together for greater impact at scale.

Mr. Ankur Malhotra, in his remarks on the launch of the Public Health Working Group (a subgroup under the CSR Committee), focused on the need for organizations to aggregate their efforts, funds, resources and contacts to ensure greater impact on society. Mr. Abhishek Gopalka, MD and Partner, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shared about the key objectives of the Public Health Working Group which would include addressing critical need gaps in Indian healthcare ecosystem, focusing on to government priorities that can benefit most from private sector, coordinating implementation efforts leveraging technical assistance from USAID and driving impact at scale. A survey would be developed and shared with members to understand past health related contributions and future topics of interest. The committee deliberated on the next CSR conference and the possibility of a research paper to illustrate the impact of CSR done by American companies. The committee would also restart CSR best practice site visits to projects in the coming months.