Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) India has set up Tsunagaru Lab, a business co-creation lab for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The lab is aimed at serving as a collaboration platform to connect Japanese companies and social enterprises in India to address social and developmental challenges in sectors such as healthcare, education, agriculture, waste and energy, among others.

According to JICA, the partnership between Indian social enterprises and Japanese companies can bring innovative and cutting-edge technologies, reach out to the “last mile” of the far-flung communities and create new business models and opportunities. These new businesses created through the partnership will offer innovative services and products to deal with the difficulties people are experiencing in daily life, and contribute to achieve SDGs, it said.

The spread of Covid-19 poses a fresh challenge to India requiring non conventional approaches and several social enterprises have already started to respond to the situation. While there is no physical lab to create the synergies among the stakeholders, the JICA India office will operate this with some partner organisations such as Aavishkaar Group, Intellecap Advisory Services (India) and ARUN LLC (Japan), it said.

Katsuo Matsumoto, Chief Representative, JICA India, said: “We understand many companies have been affected by the global spread of Covid-19, and we hope the launch of SDGs Business Co-Creation Lab - Tsunagaru Lab will be able to facilitate the partnership between Japanese companies and Indian social enterprises in this challenging time.”

“The term tsunagaru means ‘to be connected’ in Japanese. We named it hoping this platform will connect aspired business persons in India and Japan to work together to achieve the society that leaves no one behind, as pledged in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and contribute to the achievement of India’s SDGs,” he said.

The lab will facilitate partnership between Japanese companies and Indian social enterprises to contribute to the achievement of India’s SDGs directly and indirectly.

In January 2019, JICA and the Indian government had signed an agreement for an official development assistance loan of ¥15 billion (approximately ₹950 crore) to engage on SDGs.