Last Month in Impact - September 2025

Dear Reader,

Last month, our chairman, Chandita Samaranayke, travelled to New York for high-level discussions on health, climate, and digital transformation. Some of the highlights included:

• Attending the Gates Foundation Goalkeepers event

• Meeting Kanni Wignaraja, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific

• Discussing sustainability with Hans Brattskar, Norway’s Special Envoy for Climate and Environment

• Catching up with Liv Marte Nordhaug, CEO of the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA)

• Sitting down with David Gold, co-founder and CEO of GHS, and Anjali Nayyar

Please find a more detailed recap of his trip below.

Sincerely,

Emaali Gunasekara
CEO

Goalkeepers 2025

Gates Foundation Goalkeepers is a leading platform on SDGs. This year, it hosted world leaders in NYC to reimagine a future without preventable child deaths.

Chandita was in attendance and had this to say following the event:

As part of the event, Bill Gates pledged $912M to the Global Fund, with a goal to halve child deaths by 2045, and Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez received the Global Goalkeeper Award.

UNDP Dialogue

One of the highlights was Chandita’s meeting with Kanni Wignaraja, UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, to explore opportunities for collaboration.

Discussion centred on advancing cooperation across the Asia-Pacific region, building South–South policy platforms, and exploring joint work on Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and inclusive development.

Climate Cooperation

A visit to New York during Climate Week wasn’t complete without exploring opportunities for climate impact and sustainability.

Among others, Chandita met with Hans Brattskar, Norway’s Special Envoy for Climate and Environment, to discuss potential collaboration in sustainability. Hans shared key insights and priorities from the Norwegian government’s climate agenda, including how Norway supports global efforts to advance climate action and resilience.

Digital Public Goods Alliance

The Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) is an initiative endorsed by the United Nations Secretary-General that supports the discovery and deployment of digital public goods worldwide. Chandita caught up with the organisation’s CEO, Liv Marte Nordhaug, to talk digital public infrastructure across the Global South.

The discussion focused on potential collaboration under the 50-in-5 campaign and on strengthening efforts to advance inclusive, trusted, and interoperable Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) across the Global South.

Partnership with Global Health Strategies (GHS)

Chandita also met with David Gold, co-founder and CEO of GHS, along with Anjali Nayyar, at the organisation’s New York office, where they discussed ways to deepen our partnership and explored opportunities to expand collaboration across Asia-Pacific.

Looking Ahead

Connect to Care will remain focused on advancing outcome-driven solutions that create real impact. From Sri Lanka to Singapore, we are activating South–South cooperation that will link policy, technology, and community ecosystems to deliver scalable, inclusive change. Together with our partners, we are committed to accelerating progress toward the SDGs with innovation, equity, and purpose.

For more information about our work, visit connecttocare.co or our LinkedIn.