Tag Archives: Sustainable Development

“Discovering Social Change Makers” : Social entrepreneurship as a key issue in the Mediterranean and Africa (November 20th, Marseille)

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At the invitation of Institut de la Méditerranée and FEMISE, a dozen “Social Change Makers” involved in the Mediterranean region and Africa attended a workshop (Marseille, November 20th) during the Emerging Valley 2-day event. Their various experiences show the contribution of social entrepreneurship as a vector of socio-economic development accelerator but also its difficulties in imposing itself.

Les entreprises à impact social comme vecteur d'accélération de développement socio-économique (photo : F.Dubessy)

Entreprises with social impact as a vector for accelerating socio-economic development (photo : F.Dubessy)

MEDITERRANEAN / AFRICA. “Necessity is the mother of invention, so you have to try to change things with creativity.” Founder and CEO of Yomken.com Tamer Taha immediately set, during the workshop “Discovering Social Change Makers in the Mediterranean and Africa”, the problem of a “Mena region lagging behind in terms of innovation compared to other countries at the same level of development. “

Set-up by Institut de la Méditerranée, Femise and IRD (Research Institute for Development) on the occasion of Emerging Valley (Marseille, November 20, 2018) this meeting aimed to highlight the existing social entrepreneurship initiatives in Africa and in the South Mediterranean countries. As Constantin Tsakas, General Manager of Institut de la Méditerranée and General Secretary of Femise, says, “in the face of youth unemployment, the informal economy, inequalities and lack of economic diversification, social impact enterprises have the potential, that is poorly exploited, to be an accelerator of socio-economic development by taking advantage of innovative approaches. “

For Egyptian entrepreneur Tamer Taha, “innovators need more than just money and the market needs more than new ideas, and if we do not innovate, we risk going out of the international market.” With Yomken.com, an open innovation platform for industrial, environmental and social challenges, Tamer Taha connects large companies and SEs-SMEs in five countries to answer problems through calls for solutions. Since 2012, these synergies have resulted in sixty-eight challenges. One of them being the case of a German vegetable cutting machine from a Cairo company that could not process a local vegetable called okra. For $ 5,000, two young engineers managed to solve the impasse.

Strengthen African start-ups

Hatoumata Magassa met en réseau quatre incubateurs africains (photo : F.Dubessy)

Hatoumata Magassa networks four African incubators (photo: F.Dubessy)

Shadi Atshan co-founded in 2017 an accelerator for social enterprises (SEA) in Palestine. It hosts about forty start-ups and two incubators. In 2018, he went international with four projects in Jordan. “As the market is limited, these start-ups are of little interest to investors, so we help them to raise funds,” says Shadi Atshan. Hatoumata Magassa intervenes to “contribute to sustainable, inclusive and digital economic development in Morocco, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Ghana.” Coordinator of AFIDBA (AFD for Inclusive and Digital Business in Africa) – Bond’Innov (Bondy in France), she takes care of this project financed by the French Development Agency (AFD) for 2 M € to support sixty start-ups with a strong social impact and a funding scheme allocated of € 500,000.

“We are structuring and strengthening a network of incubators in our four intervention countries to strengthen African start-ups” said Hatoumata Magassa.

Natalia Resimont coordinates the “Women of the World” project of the French NGO “Quartiers du monde”, a network of solidarity entrepreneurs present in Burkina-Fasso, Madagascar, Morocco, Mali and Senegal. “We create pedagogical tools to integrate the gender perspective, without which the social and solidarity economy does not deconstruct gender inequalities and ignores a series of models and structures that maintain, update and replicate the patriarchal system : the sexual division of labor governance, violence against women, hegemonic masculinities … “, she says. The NGO has published a guide in Spanish and French (and soon in Arabic and English), the result of five years of work on the issue.

Create collaborative civil societies

” To lead real economic initiatives, these women must first rebuild. We are integrating this into our support “ says Natalia Resimont, for example,” Women of the World “created an incubator in a small town in Mali rather than in a big city to address the issue of women’s mobility.

In Lebanon, Natalia Menhall of Beyond RD, a group of activists for the development of social entrepreneurship, advocates for “building inclusive governance systems and inspiring innovative policy solutions.” With the objective of “building collaborative civil societies and human-centered partnerships in line with priorities, by providing learning opportunities for individuals, institutions and communities.”

According to her, “even if the concept is new, the phenomenon is already present in the MENA region thanks to an existing culture of solidarity and social consciousness.”

A factory of initiatives

Sihle Tshabalala et Natalia Menhall s'investissent, chacun à leur façon, dans l'élimination des obstacles au développement social (photo : F.Dubessy)

Sihle Tshabalala and Natalia Menhall are involved, each in their own way, in removing obstacles to social development (photo: F.Dubessy)

“Instead of waiting for the changes to come to us, we decided to have an active role,” insists Natalia Menhall. “Social entrepreneurship is a tool that comes to the citizen to propose solutions that can be generalized,” she said, noting that after a study in seven countries in the MENA region, “the obstacles to the development of Entrepreneurship remain very close, either the tools do not exist, or they are not adapted or concentrated in urban areas. “ Beyond is developing a Master’s program in Social Entrepreneurship. “In some countries, bankers have to go from purely economic profit to social profit,” she says.

Sihle Tshabalala is interested in disadvantaged youth born in the townships of South Africa. He knows her well to come from there. During a stay in prison, he got interested in computer coding and then put in place a learning method for academics to teach this illiterate population and train coders.

Director of Inter-Made, a social incubator based in Marseille and dedicated, since 2001, to projects with social and environmental impact, Cédric Hamon offers skills, training and networking to start-ups. “We also have a factory of initiatives because all social needs do not always find a start-up to solve them,” he says while he sets foot on the other side of the Mediterranean in Tunisia. Cédric Hamon even markets a training offer on the resolution of societal needs through entrepreneurship. “The obstacle is that you sell solutions to people who did not understand that there was a problem … So you create another problem at home,” he admits while stating, “We do not run out of funds, we do not miss projects, we lack funded projects. ” What remains, as Constantin Tsakas indicates, is that “a social project remains difficult to market.”

The Instagram of Waste

Constantin Tsakas, organisateur et animateur de cet atelier, a conscience de la difficulté à vendre l'entreprenariat social (photo : F.Dubessy)

Constantin Tsakas, organizer and moderator of this workshop, is aware of the difficulty of selling social entrepreneurship (photo: F.Dubessy)

Another angle was also given by Mouhsin Bour Qaiba. Everything starts from a statement of the co-founder of Clean City: In Casablanca, each resident generates one ton of non-recycled waste per year. This Moroccan creates what he calls “the Instagram of waste” to put pressure on the authorities and launches an application for sorting at the source with possibility of ordering bags of different colors to ease the process of recycling.

Since then, Clean City has conquered other countries. His CEO is now thinking of giving Token (cryptocurrency) to citizens who report problems posted on his site instead of points allowing discounts on purchases as currently. “We now have 20,000 active users worldwide and 14,000 claims generated, and our goal is to reach 2 million active users,” said Mouhsin Bour Qaiba.

“We wanted to show faces, men and women and insist on the ordinary aspect of their lives.” Roman-Oliver Foy, president of Friends of the Middle East (France, Lebanon), has been presenting initiatives of social entrepreneurs in the Arab world for two years through conferences and debates.

In the near future, he will be launching ten-minute videos on these experiences with the goal of inspiring potential entrepreneurs in the South and North and raising awareness among policy makers while promoting the diffusion of innovations. “Policy makers need to see what a social and supportive entrepreneur is,” he insists.

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Also check the article and video coverage by ECOMNEWSMED on the workshop : 

FEMISE had the pleasure of co-hosting a workshop on “Sustainable Finance” at SDSN-France with Prof. Jeffrey Sachs (13 November, Paris)

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FEMISE was pleased to be part of SDSN-France launch in Paris on the 13th of November 2018.

Pr. Jeffrey Sachs (SDSN, Columbia University)

The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) aims to gather a large number of leaders from all regions and diverse backgrounds in order to promote practical solutions for sustainable development, including the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement. This network has been operating since 2012 under the auspices of the UN Secretary-General and bases its action on values of joint learning and integrated approaches towards interconnected economic, social, and environmental challenges.

The launch of SDSN-France is a key event for the network in general because it allows it to have valuable partners form the academic and research field in France articulating the collaboration between multilateral actors and local financing institutions, the private sector, and civil society. The office of SDSN-France will be driven by KEDGE Business School, member of FEMISE network, the University of PSL, the Pierre et Marie Curie University and Cergy-Pontoise University.

The event was extremely rich in presentations, forward-thinking discussions and proficient workshops. These workshops took the form of collective intelligence sessions where the diversity of the backgrounds of the participants allowed a broad understanding and holistic approaches to the issues discussed. Constantin Tsakas, Secretary General of FEMISE and General Manager of Institut de la Méditerranée, was a host in the workshop “Sustainable Finance”, organized by KEDGE Business School. Alternative and green financial tools were discussed during this workshop, along with determining the key objectives and responsibilities of the French branch of SDSN, as an unavoidable stakeholder in the debate of concretization of the SDGs. Questions brought up by Professor Jeffrey Sachs (Professor at Columbia University, special consultant UN Secretary General) such as the means by which the evaluation of projects in the context of systemic transformation can be possible or the standards to apply for ESGs (Environmental, Social and corporate Governance), pointed out the richness of this matter from a conceptual point of view but also the important practicality of this issue.

In his recap of the workshop, Professor Thomas Lagoarde-Segot (Associate Professor of Economics and International Finance at KEDGE Business School and FEMISE researcher), stressed on the role of SDSN as a mediator between the different actors of Green Finance and more particularly as a gateway between the academic world and research, on the one hand, and the practitioners, on the other. An approach in 3 steps, that included FEMISE proposals, was retained by the participants: To achieve SDSN-France’s full potential, the network could act on 3 levels; the macro-level by raising awareness towards policy-makers, the meso-level by allowing the emergence and mapping of structures (financial, technical) that support social impact and on the micro-level by helping social entrepreneurs improve their perception of Green Finance and their access to it.

These findings were then exposed during a plenary session with the presence of the SDSN-France board and will be included in the roadmap of this French branch of the network, under the section “Sustainable Finance”, alongside the other key findings of the different workshops tackling subjects as diverse and essential as “Education for Sustainable Development”, “Sustainable Cities”, “Sustainable Value Chains”, “Energetic transitions” and leads toward enhancing the “Solutions’ agenda” for SDGs in France. All of these workshops stressed the crucial role of SDSN-France as a facilitator of collaboration between stakeholders and of an accelerator of academic and intellectual effervescence towards finding practical and adequate solutions to concretize SDG goals.

“Precipitating the change of the system as a whole” was one of the focal points of Professor Jeffrey Sachs during his keynote speech at the Chimie ParisTech. It is not about addressing each issue as an independent issue but about “kedging” the world towards change and towards cooperation and alternative ways of governing.

FEMISE at the launch of the SDSN France office, co-piloted by KEDGE (November 13, Paris)

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FEMISE is pleased to invite you to launch of the french office of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) of the United Nations.

 

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs

The SDSN France office is co-led by KEDGE Business School, a member of the FEMISE network, and by the Pierre and Marie Curie University.

A Keynote Speech from Prof. Jeffrey Sachs (Professor at Columbia University, Special Consultant to the UN Secretary-General) will inaugurate the launching conference on November 13th at Chimie ParisTech.

In addition, KEDGE Business School will organize a “Sustainable Finance” brainstorming Workshop during the inaugural conference of this network. The participants in the workshop organized by KEDGE Business School originate from the academic, institutional and corporate worlds, and have been identified as key actors of change for the refoundation of financial models and practices in response to the challenges of ecological transition.

Jean-Christophe Carteron, Thomas Lagoarde, Constantin Tsakas

Among the panelists, Jean-Christophe Carteron (CSR Director at KEDGE Business School), Pr. Thomas Lagoarde (Associate Professor of Economics and International Finance at KEDGE Business School and FEMISE researcher) and Dr. Constantin Tsakas (General Manager of the Institut de la Méditerranée, General Secretary of FEMISE).

 

The workshop will take the form of a collective intelligence session led by a specialized speaker. The findings of this workshop will be presented in the plenary session in the presence of the steering committee of SDSN France, and will constitute the roadmap of the sustainable finance component of SDSN France. Sign up for the launching conference : https://www.weezevent.com/journee-de-lancement-reseau-sdsn-france-13-novembre-2018-conference

The Challenges of Climate Change in the Mediterranean

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Taking the environment into account in economic and political decisions, in particular considering the development of renewable energies, is a major challenge for the future of the world and of course for the Mediterranean.

Institut de la Méditerranée (IM) and FEMISE contributed by writing a chapter for the ENERGIES 2050 report on climate change in the Mediterranean which was presented at the COP22 in Marrakech on November 15th 2016.

The chapter in question is Chapter II « La région Sud-Med post-Printemps Arabes et les potentiels pour l’environnement » the main author being Dr. Constantin TSAKAS (General Manager of Institut de la Méditerranée, General Secretary of FEMISE) with contributions by Dr Maryse LOUIS (General Manager of FEMISE, Programs Manager ERF) and Dr. Abeer EL-SHINNAWY (FEMISE, American University in Cairo).

The report (in French) allows to carry out a more detailed analysis of key sustainable development issues in the Mediterranean basin and is available for download by clicking here.

The South Med Countries facing the environmental challenges

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By: Dr. Constantin TSAKAS, General Manager of Institut de la Méditerranée, General Secretary of FEMISE, and main author of the chapter on “The South-Med region post-Arab Spring and the economic potentials linked to the environment” of the ENERGIES2050 report[1] on” Challenges to Climate Change in the Mediterranean” released at the occasion of the international COP22 conference that took place in Marrakech on November 15th 2016.

Institut de la Méditerranée (IM) and FEMISE contributed by writing a chapter for the ENERGIES 2050 report on climate change in the Mediterranean which was presented at the COP22 in Marrakech on November 15th 2016. This article presents some of the chapters’ findings.

The report (in French) is available for download by clicking here.

 

Some progress, but opportunities still to be grasped…

Taking the environment into account in economic and political decisions, in particular considering the development of renewable energies, is a major challenge for the future of the world and of course for the Mediterranean.

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Dr. Constantin TSAKAS (GM Institut de la Méditerranée, GS FEMISE)

The South Mediterranean countries have made some progress in terms of Energy Efficiency (EE) and renewable energies (RE) but many opportunities are still to be captured in order to catch up with the rest of the world. In the mid-2000s, the share of RE (hydro, wind, solar, geothermal) in primary energy consumption was already well below the threshold required to achieve the objectives of the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD) (the hope was to reach 7% by 2015).

Unfortunately, between 2000 and 2014, an annual growth in primary energy intensity for MPs such as Egypt (+ 0.8%), Algeria (+ 0.9%) and Libya (+2,6%) was recorded, suggesting that these economies remain increasingly energy-intensive relative to their level of GDP. However, countries such as Jordan (-1.4%) and Lebanon (-1.5%) seem to be better off, approaching the EU’s performance in terms of Energy intensity.

The Arab Spring and what it means for the region’s environmental progress

The Arab Spring created new challenges that the region has to face, which meant that the promotion of the environment and renewable energies had dropped a few places in these countries’ priority agenda. Despite this, renewable energies remain a rather stable sector for investment in the region and have not considerably weakened following the revolutions. Between 2006 and 2015, estimates show that the region represents € 7.3 billion in FDI for a total of 144 projects (as recorded by the ANIMA-MIPO observatory) for an average project size of € 50.7 million. Despite such stability these figures are still low, especially considering that Tunisia’s GDP alone accounts for US $ 47 billion in 2013.

It should be noted, however, that the year 2015 was one of the most important in recent years in terms of FDI-projects announced. This is mainly due to major initiatives by firms from the United Arab Emirates and Europe, which are relaunching projects of several hundred million euros, notably in photovoltaics and wind power, most particularly in Egypt.

The Green Economy in the Southern Mediterranean

The green economy can produce significant economic impacts in terms of production (direct and induced) and job creation. For example, a FEMISE (2013) study estimated that a CSP (Concentrated Solar Plants) industry in Morocco could have an overall impact on Moroccan GDP of 1.27% to 1.77% by 2050, creating more than 200,000 jobs.

But many barriers persist, notably regarding the lack of international or local financial resources, combined with a high-risk premium. In addition, political barriers are significant and the lack / instability of the fiscal and legislative framework for the development of CSPs is still being felt.

Ways forward and recommendations for the South Med

Governments of the South Med countries should consider becoming true partners that co-construct the ecological interest based on local actors, paving the way for a green economy. Multiplying territorial agreements between the State and local territories on actions that promote sustainable development would give an impetus that allows consolidating a framework of multilevel governance.

logo-cop22-919x650In addition, the State could be more supportive of environmentally sustainable projects that meet the real needs of territories that present environmental risks. Territorial diagnoses would be necessary to make territories an “axis of a reorientation of the economy towards local sustainable development”. These diagnoses could lead to territorial recovery pacts that unite all actors that participate in the sustainable development of territories / regions.

In addition to these policy recommendations, it bodes down to having an orientation that allows exploiting opportunities in the private sector. These opportunities are not limited to a particular sector, but manufacturing, finance and insurance, construction and professional, scientific and technical activities can clearly benefit.

Finally, MPs should exploit their strengths in terms of EE and RE, such as high solar potential (irradiation), low costs of unskilled labor, an emerging local industry and the fact that for Europe the development of the green economy in the Mediterranean (eg the solar industry) would be a true value added.

 [1] ENERGIES2050 is a french association based in Nice (France). It seeks, in particular, to promote and encourage containing energy demand: energy saving, energy efficiency and the development of renewable energies. FEMISE and Institut de la Méditerranée have partnered with this important partner in the field of climate change to have an additional channel to contribute in meeting the challenges the EuroMed region is facing and reaching out to policy-makers.