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The
Partnership Impact Hub & Cordaid Partnership Resilience Africa Program
Cordaid and Impact Hub share the belief that entrepreneurs in complex contexts are incredibly resourceful and have immense potential. This potential lies not only in strengthening their own economies, civic societies and country systems, but also in contributing to the rest of the world with their ability to innovate, develop and grow prosperous businesses. By combining Cordaid and Impact Hub’s expertise and experiences, the Resilience Africa program is jointly developing a unique pipeline of investment-ready ventures through supporting entrepreneurs in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya and Sierra Leone to establish Impact Hubs. The hope is that these spaces will provide much needed incubation and acceleration services in their cities, and will build and strengthen local entrepreneurial ecosystems. The Cordaid and Impact Hub partnership is focused on the mutual goal of creating long lasting support for social entrepreneurs, collaborating closely with the local leaders and entrepreneurs who can make this happen and together, encouraging spaces where innovation can truly flourish.
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The
Journey The journey to realizing this ambitious project has raised some important questions in how we approach our work. What does it take to become a truly global network that enables the development of a sustainable future through collaboration and entrepreneurship? What does it take to build resilient entrepreneurial ecosystems that contribute to reducing the vulnerability of entire nations? These were Impact Hub and Cordaid’s initial questions as they explored how to contribute to resilient entrepreneurial ecosystems in complex environments, and more broadly, global discussions around resilience and entrepreneurship. The Resilience Program was thus developed to prototype entrepreneurial solutions, and also to learn and reflect deeply on what resilience means and what we, as ecosystem builders, can do to enable more entrepreneurs in their endeavours. Through interactions with entrepreneurs, institutions and others globally during the past year, one key take away has been that that this is a global discussion, rather than a purely regional one these gathered insights transcend the African context and serve any entrepreneurial effort in challenging conditions. With this in mind, Impact Hub and Cordaid convened a series of dialogues and meetings through 2015, in Kigali and Berlin with thought leaders, to understand the entrepreneurship challenges and opportunities in different contexts and to develop a deeper understanding of what makes entrepreneurs “resilient” - what they need to thrive and what key services, support and interventions create the ideal conditions to this end. The Re-Imagining Resilience event in Addis represented the culmination of these enquiries, bringing together players from the global and regional ecosystems to share their knowledge and experience, and to create meaningful and catalyzing connections that approximate the ecosystem and create practical opportunities for collaboration informed by a new narrative of resilience. The thinking...let’s walk the talk and start collaborating.
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Why Re-imagining Resilience? Through this journey of enquiry, we came across several complementary definitions of resilience and it became clear that no matter what the definition we adopt, we could only comprehend the meaning of it when we engage with the different stories and journeys entrepreneurs have lived. Thus, the question shifted to what we could learn from these stories about what works; how could entrepreneur’s’ personal journey stories inform, inspire and provoke our understanding and give us the opportunity to reimagine our understanding of resilience together?
The Calling Question What are we talking about when we say resilience? What does it mean in your context? What does it mean when we say an entrepreneur is resilient, or an ecosystem is resilient? How is it different for policy makers, entrepreneurs, donors, partners and other ecosystem facilitators? What kinds of programs, investments and initiatives are happening, or need to happen, to increase resilience? Through the stories gathered from entrepreneurs, it was possible to get a preliminary insight into what “resilience” means for entrepreneurs in their daily efforts. As a result, we were able to refine the question to include what entrepreneurs consider as resilience. “How can we enable entrepreneurs who are faced with challenging conditions to thrive, recover quickly, co-evolve and experience themselves as a part of a whole?” We entered the conference with this question to frame the discussion and challenge us as an ecosystem to not only think the entrepreneurial resilience but also to inquire into wider ecosystem and systemic perspectives on resilience.
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what is
Resilience? Co-evolve To evolve and progress in interdependent relationships with other people and systems and transcend current conditions
Transform
shapeshift
Seeing opportunities where other people see problems
What did we learn about “resilience” and what actually works?
Move into different roles depending on what’s needed and to do what the context needs.
recover quickly To recover quickly and emerge stronger
ecosystem catalysts Entrepreneurs that come from places that suffocate innovation (vs ecosystems that spur innovation) are more than ‘resilient entrepreneurs’, they are ecosystem catalysts – they create the language, infrastructure and culture of entrepreneurship from scratch;
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as part of a whole The ability to understand themselves as part of a whole (to be aware of the network of relations, the ecosystem and the your role in a bigger context)
Prototyping what the characteristics of an Ecosystem that enables entrepreneurs in their journey Building on what resilience looks like, how does an ecosystem need to look and function to become an active enabler of these capacities. What are the key characteristics of such an ecosystem?
Social Capital Vibrant entrepreneurial Community and functioning Networks, Spaces for peer to peer support and to connect Like-minded people. Space for mutual learning and being united.
Local Community the more relevance to the local community, the community itself will support the business in challenging moments if it is relevant to its identity.
Education Education and Training that encourages and facilitates people to create.
Enabling Culture Entrepreneurial mindset & attitude, An entrepreneurial culture, changing the narrative from this is difficulty to one that says “together it’s possible!”
The ecosystem seeing itself Making the ecosystem visible and seeing everyone’s role and the synergies and resource Sharing.
Transparency & access to Information Access to critical and relevant information that creates equal opportunities for entrepreneurs to access finance, legal compliance and markets.
Capital Responsible financial players, access to capital.
Government & Political will Legislation that promotes the entrepreneurial spirit and encouraging private sector development and does not depend on aid.
Entrepreneurship Fostering Organisations Customized and specific Centres to inform, train, finance and enable entrepreneurial activities.
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Learnings and Insight from
Stories and Provocations
Thanks to our provokers and storytellers Gada Kadoda, Kadidia Konare, Ange Muyubira, Claudia Valladares, Zachariah George, Mugethi Gitau and Sheilah Birgen for inspiring, challenging and touching us and for teaching us small and big lessons about what resilience means, what it looks like and what it takes to be on that journey.
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Their Insights Claudia Valladares Co-founder and Director, Impact Hub Caracas
How a country such as Venezuela with the largest proven oil reserves creates a situation of scarcity of goods and services in which people need to stand in line for hours to buy 1 chicken or 1 kilo of rice or buy medicines or to obtain a medical treatment in a hospital. According to Claudia Valladares, despite of all this circumstances entrepreneurs have been able to reframe their situation and start looking at things differently, promoting kindness and hope and seeking reconciliation while creating meaningful business through creative partnerships. The primacy of hope couldn’t be more important in this context; “hope being an optimistic attitude of mind based on an expectation of positive outcomes related to events and circumstances in one’s life or the world at large. And we learned about the power of choice as Viktor Frankl describes it: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one’s own way”
Gada Kadoda Academic Activist and Researcher
From Gada Kadoda, we heard the story of a community in Sudan in which elder women with no literacy were trained to become community solar engineers and developed community based and owned business. Gada’s story explored how the power of communities owning their business and creating a strong sense of purpose can unfold a sense of mission and risk taking to protect and rebuild their businesses, even in dangerous and life threatening situations.
Kadidia Konare Advisor to the President of Mali and Co-founder, Impact Hub Bamako
Nobody could disagree with Kadidia Konare who opened with: “the entrepreneurial journey is an emotional roller coaster”. According to Kadidia, what maximizes the likelihood of success and resilience is the level of connectivity of the entrepreneur and the ecosystem. It’s the network, the community and the relationships of trust that make us less likely quit.
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Ange Muyubira Founder & CEO of Kaz’O’zah Art
Ange Muyubira created a social enterprise that gives Burundian artisans, especially women & youth, the opportunity to use their craftsmanship to become self-sufficient, support their families, and overcome poverty. Despite Burundi currently struggling with political discord and being the 4th poorest country in the world, Ange has been training artisans to produce modern designed artisanal items and finding them markets. This has improved the art and craft industry in Burundi and opened doors for artisans in the industry. Her organisation Kaz’O’zah Art currently works with over 135 Burundian artisans, 30 of whom are full-time employees. Her journey over the last 3 years has been challenging in many aspects, but the achievements are impressive.
Zachariah George Founder & CEO of Cactus Advisors
Zachariah George shared the idea of how ‘resilience’ is the ability to balance what supercharges your passion and what fuels your drive. He defines passion as something that pulls you toward something you cannot resist. Drive pushes you toward something you feel compelled or obligated to do. In other words he invited us to be a wild & crazy base jumper that moonlights as a boring accountant, balancing passion and drive.
Mugethi Gitau Creative Techie
Sheilah Birgen Interim Director, m:Lab East Africa
Mugethi Gitau and Sheilah Birgen from Kenya curated 10 stories about inspiring entrepreneurs from around the world who represent resilience to their very core. Included among them were: DJ Focus from Sierra Leone, a 15 year old self taught engineer who built a radio station from items found in trash; David Sengeh, also from Sierra Leone who developed pain-free prosthetics using 3D printing; Kakenya Ntaiya from Kenya who underwent FGM to get an education and is now offering education for thousands of young girls so that they don’t have to undergo the same; Nawres and Oday, pharmacists turned makers who offer young people in Iraq a space to innovate and create; and finally, the incredible Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin who initiated the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange, reinventing access to markets in Ethiopia.
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Project Labs Highlights
Day 2 of the conference started with structured networking formats, creating space for participants to get to know one another better and start collaborating with each other. Inspired and informed by the previous day and energized by the morning’s networking opportunities, the final sessions focused on developing solutions; workshop hosts were invited to present challenges faced in their organisational practice and participants worked together to build solutions and apply their own expertise and experience to these challenges. The workshops were hosted by key ecosystem players, bringing to bear years of collective experience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
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Workshop #1
Practitioner Dialogue: Landscape of Support Services for Social and Environmental Enterprises The practitioner dialogue on the landscape of support services brought together incubators, accelerators and BDS providers from different countries and sectors. In a peer-learning format, practitioners from the support space gained an overview on the current landscape through a Mapping & Pitching Session in Round 1; while in Round 2, the dialogue allowed participants to develop solutions and to identify partners and collaborations that might assist in overcoming the sector challenges. The session was part of an ongoing effort by SEED to map the evolving landscape of support services in the African context, and to develop recommendations for action to further strengthen and shape the field.
Host
SEED - Magdalena Kloibhofer
Workshop #2
Rethinking Job Creation & Entrepreneurship
Youth unemployment is one of the most pressing social issues in Africa. Also, the job market struggle to absorb thousands of fresh graduates looking for jobs every year. Africans, between the ages of 15 and 25 represented more than 45 percent of the labor force in 2014 (ILO, 2014). Approximatively 50% of Africa’s labor force is engaged in either subsistence activities or other forms of vulnerable employment (McKinsey, 2012). And yet despite registering a relatively high economic growth rate, Africa has lagged behind in terms of job creation over the past decade (UNDP, 2013). Host
Social Finance.org - Peter Nichols, Africa Impact Group - Issam Chleuh
Workshop #3
Can professional skill building programs truly scale?
At Amani Institute, we know that innovation & problem-solving skills are critical for success not only for social entrepreneurs but also for their teams. We also know that adult learning is best when it is personalized & customized but that requires a high-touch approach, which is resource intensive. What we are still figuring out how to best scale our high quality education model and make it accessible for those who can’t afford to pay US university-type tuition fees. Some of the questions addressed in this session were: 1) How could we scale in-person adult learning and talent development? 2) Who could be potential partners for us? 3) What solutions have you seen work in other contexts? Host
Amani Institute - Caroline Gertsch
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Workshop #4
Leveraging Domestic Resources to Build Resilient Ecosystems
Local institutions can further support early stage enterprises by mobilizing a base of local individuals who can support early stage businesses by sharing expertise and financing – but how? If channelled properly, local angels can contribute significantly to building resilient ecosystems because they bring local knowledge, business insights, and capital – all of which are more relevant and reliable than external resources. Host
Intellecap - Arielle Molino
Workshop #5
The Resilience Innovation Challenge
About bootcamp The crowdfunding bootcamp started on Friday afternoon with a great group of enthusiastic do-gooders, ImpactHub candidates, ImpactHub managers and Ethiopian start-ups. About 20 participants joined the session and started the preparations of their do-good crowdfunding campaign. The bootcamp was all about running a fun, creative and effective crowdfunding campaign (in order to engage & mobilise your community, get important stakeholders on board, test and promote your project/idea/start-up and get some extra funding) Host
1%Club - Malou van Nieuwkoop, Jasmijn Besorak
Workshop #6
What are the biggest gaps for entrepreneurs in the incubator/accelerator continuum? For entrepreneurship ecosystems to provide valuable journeys for the entrepreneurs that truly improve the rate and scope of success for them, players in the idea-to-scale continuum (e.g. community spaces, incubators and accelerators) must understand their roles better in the context of the entrepreneurs’ needs and be willing and open to collaborate around taxonomy, analysis of cause and effect, and learning points in relation to the wider entrepreneurial ecosystem. This workshop looked at what the most common gaps are in African ecosystems, identified possible causes and started the work of framing potential solutions.
Host
GrowthAfrica - Johnni Kjelsgaard, Village Capital - Lia Mayka
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Workshop #7
Resilient Business Development Services
With the desire to contribute to the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem, Cordaid in partnership with R&D Group has designed Resilience BDS to deliver to SMEs in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Sierra Leone & Burundi. Focusing on the ‘missing middle’; SMEs with significant growth potential with value adding product/service and job creating opportunities, our service provides a “hands on” approach to create opportunity for entrepreneurs to help each other and get access to the right expertise to create successful businesses. We support our clients with professional marketing, HRM, financial management, Business rule of law, Operations and Supply chain, Access to market & finance. These are the eight carefully selected topics, which are delivered using diverse modalities. Unlike the usual BDS providers, we deliver our clients with extensive subject specific expertise, professional coaching and networking to deal with challenging business situations. Host
Cordaid, R&D - Boris Alberda, Rahel Boon-Dejene
Co-Host: Resilient Business Development Services Project Lab Boris Alberda, Cordaid “During the Cordaid RBDS workshop, 20 entrepreneurs and BDS providers shared best practices in entrepreneurial resilience in challenging circumstances. We talked openly about corruption, “extra tax”. One entrepreneur said that “if you have to import goods for the coming year, it pays to spend time understanding the official’s purpose of asking for money”. He told a story in which he found out the purpose was to earn money for a niece who couldn’t find a job. Our entrepreneur asked for her resumé and went to colleague entrepreneurs and in the end found her a job. Needless to say, he never had to pay for another bribe when importing goods. For the RBDS coaches present in the room it was useful to learn that best practices we picked up in Sierra Leone, Guatemala also rang true in other challenging circumstances. Whether it was how to deal with family members wanting a piece of your entrepreneurial success or how to get employees committed to your company. Cordaid will keep pushing the envelope on best practices, how to deal with specific challenges as a resilient entrepreneur, sharing also the stories of the entrepreneurs in this workshop. Let’s for now hope the niece holds on the her job!”
Co-Host: Re-Thinking Job Creation & Entrepreneurship Project Lab Issam Chleuh, Africa Impact Group & Impact Hub Bamako “The workshop was on an innovation in finance called “Development Impact Bond” to address the pressing issue of youth unemployment in Africa. A Development Impact Bond (DIB) would finance a program to provide skills training that better match SME needs in the agriculture sector, increasing productivity and employment. Alongside the DIB support for skills training there would be direct investment in SMEs, with possible support also for Business Development Services (BDS).” Key learning/take away was that the audience and attendees were very interested in the issue of youth unemployment. Lots of questions have been asked on the DIB structure, its application, relevance and outcomes.
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What did participants think about the conference?
We asked the participants for their feedback on the conference and what was most meaningful to them.
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What was the most interesting thing you learnt during the event? Will you change anything in the way you work based on this event? “That connecting with other entrepreneurs and coming together to find solutions and facing challenges is the most effective and efficient way to impact and change the world while growing one’s own businesses” “Probably just retrenching the idea that if you believe in something, you should work to get it done, even in the face of adversity. We all know it, but so important to hear and reinforce.” Got to know other key players in the African ecosystem & power of collaboration Reinforced the idea that we need to think and work as a field. How to create appropriate atmosphere for collaboration and partnership. Different perspectives for development in Africa Our project lab didn’t yield any ‘aha!’ ideas, but validated the work we are already doing, so very valuable there The presentation on financing social businesses by Peter Nicholas made me see finance in a new light. It was stellar. The critical importance of networking/collaboration
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Please tell us about the most meaningful connection you made during the event. Starting a partnership with EU on finding solutions for emigrant crises Connections with foundations and potential partners I met two potential suppliers for the company I work for Broadening the network with diverse people all committed to building entrepreneurship ecosystems has been great More debate/discussion, some solid recommendations on how to strengthen the ecosystem More concrete market sessions would benefit participants; requires more outside partners (corporate, public partners) to join
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What next? After two days or working together, a key take away was that creating the space for this kind of interaction and discussion is sorely needed. Entrepreneurs and sector facilitators are doing incredible jobs, and in many cases, struggling through the same blockages. Not knowing of one another’s existence is a main contributor here. Collaboration and knowledge sharing are a few of the many steps that will lead to resilient entrepreneurial ecosystems and thriving social innovation businesses. Although the conference was an important step towards understanding what needs to be done and who is doing what, it is the first of many steps. As we forge ahead with our respective work, taking the space to reflect collectively and share experiences is an important contribution towards making us all more effective and realizing a more just, sustainable and equitable world.
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About The Organizers
Cordaid
For more than 100 years, values of compassion and solidarity have been the source of inspiration for Cordaid’s work. Cordaid’s mission today is to contribute to the structural social change and transformation that is needed to build flourishing communities in fragile and conflict-affected areas. Cordaid aims at a just and sustainable world for everyone. A world in which we share our Global Common Goods, create space for diversity and we work together with everyone who shares our values, interests and a common purpose. Cordaid strongly believes in collaboration and works closely with a network of 617 partner organizations in 38 countries. Cordaid’s track record of investing in the missing middle in challenging contexts is based on a two-track approach. The first track consists of the provision of access to inclusive finance whilst the second one is the provision of Resilience Business Development Services (RBDS). www.cordaid.org
Impact Hub
Impact Hubs are curators of physical and virtual work and social spaces designed to help materialize your vision for a better world; part innovation lab, part business incubator, and part community center, we offer our members a unique ecosystem of resources, inspiration, and collaboration opportunities to move their ideas from intention to impact. We believe a better world evolves through the combined accomplishments of creative, committed and compassionate individuals focused on a common purpose. From Amsterdam to Johannesburg, Khartoum to San Francisco, Accra to Sao Paulo, we are a rapidly expanding, diverse global network of over 11,000+ members in 65+ locations, with another 20+ in the making. Each Impact Hub is developed and owned by a local team and is deeply rooted in the local market and community. Although each local Impact Hub has their own unique community, Impact Makers from around the world come together on a global scale to share stories, aspirations, and accomplishments that celebrate our collective impact. www.impacthub.net
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About the participants
The ecosystem present 1% Club Abuigda Fashion Al Barakawi international co Ltd Amani Institute Amstel Fast Food Man PLC Anesvad Argidius Foundation Aster Bunna AWIB B(energy) BMW Foundation BOP Innovation Center British Council Cordaid
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@Re-ImaginingResilience2015
Damascane Essential Oils Processing PLC Don Door Traditional Handwoven PLC ECBE Entrepreneurship Development Center - Ethiopia Edukas - ICCO Cooperation Embassy of the Netherlands, Khartoum, Sudan Enat S.C Bank Endurance Youth Association Eth Association of Women in Business
Ethio Jobs Ethiopian Women Exporter Association European Union Delegation to Ethiopia Gashanti Unity Genius PLC GIZ EnDev ET Globhe Gollabe Bee Product PLC Growth Africa (Hub/incubator) Heineken iceAddis
Innovide Marketing PLC Instwork Consulting PLC Intellecap International Leadership institute Impact Hub Key to Market Korojo Leather Products M-Lab - Kenya Cactus Advisors Mercy Corps Motorola Solutions Nisir Microfinance Institution S.C. Nitsare Project Service Plc Novastar Ventures
Pacific Integral Partnership for Change R&D Group Ram Marketing and Media PLC Reach for Change RK Renew Energy PLC SEED Symposium Seedstars World Siemens Stiftung Social Finance UK Technoserve The GUZO Project Think Africa Tseda Trading Plc
UNDP Village Capital xHub Addis Yale University Young Entrepreneurs Exchange Project (YEEP) Zebidar Brewery Zemen Bank
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Find more on Social Media Blog post by Boris Alberda | The conference in images 24 | RE-IMAGINING RESILIENCE 2015
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