SEED Mauritius Dialogue Forum 2017
The Mauritius Dialogue Forum hosted by SEED and NELIS (Next Leaders Initiative for Sustainability) was held on August 8th in Port Louis. The event brought together around 50 stakeholders from enterprises, the policy level and key support organisations.
Eco-inclusive enterprises are vivid examples on how the private sector plays a significant role in implementing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. An observation of the SME sector in Mauritius shows that innovative enterprise solutions provide suitable approaches to climate-smart agriculture, waste management and recycling challenges. The involvement of the private sector will be instrumental for the country’s transition to a green economy.
But how can we unlock the full potential of eco-inclusive enterprises in Mauritius?
The event kicked off with the NELIS Entrepreneurs’ Café, an intensive and highly interactive session engaging 50 entrepreneurs from Mauritius on business model innovation to compete and collaborate better for high impact in local communities. The fruitful discussions were among others inspired by contributions of the 2016 SWITCH Africa Green-SEED Award Winner Belle Verte.
SEED was honoured to welcome his Excellency Soomilduth Bholah, Minister of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives, her Excellency Marjaana Sall, Ambassador of the European Union to the Republic of Mauritius, UNDP Resident Representative Simon Springett and Marie Lourdes Raphael-Robertson, Member of the Rodrigues Regional Assembly who providing insights on how the private sector will be supported to play a key role in establishing a circular green and inclusive economy in Mauritius.
A true highlight of the event was the Award Ceremony honouring the outstanding business case and the team of Walali with the 2017 SWITCH Africa Green-SEED Award generously sponsored by the European Union with SWITCH Africa Green. Walali shared inspiring insights on an innovative business case of processing and packaging Octopus and Red Bean in Rodrigues.
The event came to a close with an interactive panel discussion outlining ideas and solutions for supporting the private sector to foster Mauritius’ path towards an inclusive green economy.
The SEED Mauritius Dialogue Forum successfully provided a forum for enterprises, key support organisations, and the policy level to exchange insights, knowledge and learnings. With regards to the highly competitive SME sector in Mauritius, participants appreciated the opportunity to share important success factors of enterprises development and challenges faced. The Dialogue Forum outlined the need of enterprises and key support organisations in Mauritius to jointly dive deeper into creating joint approaches to develop enabling conditions for eco-inclusive SME development and to improve the financial and non-financial support landscape.
