Enterprise Brief: Hortinet
Published: 06 July 2015
Hortinet specializes in sourcing and supplying urban markets in Malawi with various organic horticultural produce grown in the enterprise’s land and in outsourced smallholder farms. The enterprise maintains production contracts with local farmers and provides them with training and extension services. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: Khepri Biosciences
Published: 06 July 2015
Responding to food insecurity and the increasing cost of animal farming in rural South Africa, Khepri Biosciences is piloting the cultivation of insect larvae on abattoir refuse, processing them into low cost, high protein animal feed. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: Kidogo Early Childhood Centres
Published: 06 July 2015
Kidogo Early Childhood Centres establish affordable and safe childcare options in East Africa’s informal settlements (slums), allowing mothers and caregivers to work and attend school. Kidogo uses a micro-franchising model supporting local women to start self-sustaining childcare centres. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: Lighting Up Women's Lives
Published: 06 July 2015
Lighting Up Women’s Lives has developed a model to support women entrepreneurship and facilitate affordable access to solar lights and chargers to rural villages of the Kavango region by creating synergies with the existing network and supply chain of established handicrafts companies. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: Loja de Energias
Published: 06 July 2015
Loja de Energias supplies households in rural Mozambique with clean and renewable energy sources. Its energy shops are managed by women who work with community leaders in order to stimulate the purchase of renewable energy systems. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: O Viveiro
Published: 06 July 2015
O Viveiro maintains a centre for underprivileged girls, who receive training on organic farming, food processing, management and sales. The produce from the enterprise’s and local farms is harvested, processed and sold at two shops and a restaurant managed by the girls. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: Peacock Seeds
Published: 06 July 2015
Peacock Seeds supplies farmers across Malawi with certified maize and legume seeds that can adapt to climate change. The seeds support food security and empower smallholder farmers by increasing their income in the long run. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: People of the Sun
Published: 06 July 2015
People of the Sun offers unique handmade homeware products created from recycled and local, natural materials by marginalised artisans in Malawi. Artisans are organized in six enterprises, and profits from sales are reinvested in the organisation to ensure growth and support to artisans. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: RECAPO CBO
Published: 06 July 2015
RECAPO CBO offers clean, renewable and affordable energy to residents in rural Malawi, where over 90% of the population has no access to grid electricity. Its affordable Pay-As-You-Go model allows low-income households to exchange expensive and polluting lighting and electrical systems for solar solutions. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: RISE
Published: 06 July 2015
RISE sells solar products to smallholder farmers in rural Tanzania by leveraging innovative consumer financing and utilising existing distribution networks by its partners. RISE’s purpose is to make renewable energy services available and affordable to consumers in Tanzania’s most rural regions. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: RK Renew Energy PLC
Published: 06 July 2015
RK Renew Energy PLC uses local resources to produce improved ceramic cookstoves. Women from rural and semi-urban areas are trained to build the ceramic stoves and to distribute and sell them in Ethiopian refugee camps. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: SavvyLoo
Published: 06 July 2015
SavvyLoo combines a waterless toilet with a low-tech solution to generate energy from human waste. The system is designed to separate liquids from solids using solar heat and dehydration, thus reducing harmful pathogens. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: STM Solar Technologies Manufacturing
Published: 06 July 2015
STM Solar Technologies Manufacturing is the first company in Ethiopia to offer solar power solutions for electricity and lighting. The enterprise also provides families with micro-finance credit to acquire such systems, as well as training and repair services. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: Terra Nova Waste to Farming
Published: 06 July 2015
Terra Nova Waste to Farming employs individuals in vulnerable conditions to produce natural fertiliser out of organic urban waste. The compost reduces the amount of urban solid waste at local dumps and improves soil fertility and crop yields in the region. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: The Moringa Cooperative
Published: 06 July 2015
The Moringa Cooperative is primarily focused on donating, planting, and cultivating Moringa oleifera (Moringa), and other beneficial plants, in cooperation with rural Eco-Schools in Limpopo Province. The enterprise promotes food security and improved nutrition, provides employment for disadvantaged women and youth, and contributes to local industry through enterprise development. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: Village Energy
Published: 06 July 2015
Village Energy is building a rural renewable energy technician network to service and sell solar systems. It recruits and trains technicians as franchisee entrepreneurs directly at the village level, providing vocational training, business set-up support, branded marketing, and spare part and product inventory. Read more
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Enterprise Brief: Vula Mobile
Published: 06 July 2015
Vula Mobile has developed a mobile phone app that empowers rural health professionals to provide efficient and effective eye care by accessing accurate information and connecting to specialists. The higher quality of primary care to patients reduces the impact of treatable and reversible illnesses. Read more
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Increasing the impact of social enterprises in developing and emerging economies
Published: 25 June 2015 Aline Margaux Wachner, Lisa M. Hanley, Tim Weiss
A recent large-scale survey published by Zeppelin University and Siemens Stiftung generally support the idea that social enterprises can have a positive impact on poverty reduction. However, it also reveals some caveats, which have led us to derive concrete recommendations for action. Read more
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Green Bio Energy, a SEED Story from Uganda
Published: 26 May 2015
Green Bio Energy is a social enterprise, which offers low-income Ugandan families access to cost-saving, eco-friendly and safe energy solutions. They produce and sell Briketi Charcoal Briquettes, as well as an own brand of energy-efficient stoves, Briketi Eco Stoves. The enterprise also provides individuals and organizations with trainings on micro-enterprise management or briquettes production, and sells equipments for small-scale briquettes production. Read more
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Green Heat, a SEED Story from Uganda
Published: 26 May 2015
Green Heat is an enterprise installing and marketing biogas digesters that convert decaying organic material from latrines and agricultural waste into biogas fuel for cooking and heating. By using biogas digesters, urban and rural households, schools, prisons, hospitals and tourist lodges in Uganda reduce their dependence on firewood and charcoal, improve their waste management systems, and help reduce deforestation and greenhouse gas emission rates related to methane release. Read more
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greenABLE, a SEED Story from South Africa
Published: 26 May 2015
greenABLE has found an innovative solution for recycling empty printer cartridges. The recycled plastic and metals are sold, generating a steady flow of income and employment opportunities for previously unemployed persons with disabilities. Jobs are being created in the enterprise’s recycling facility or as greenAGENTS who run their own home-based cartridge collection business and sell the collected cartridges back to the enterprise. Read more
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Anna Fälth, UN Women speaking at the SEED Africa Symposium 2014
Published: 19 May 2015
Anna Fälth from UN Women speaking at the SEED Africa Symposium 2014 in Nairobi about the role of UN Women in Sustainable Development, the support needs of social and environmental enterprises and her key take-aways from the event. Read more
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Greening South Africa’s economy: improved business development support for social and environmental enterprises
Published: 06 May 2015 Julia Rohe-Frydrych, Rest Kanju
According to World Bank, South Africa ranks as an upper-middle income economy, representing the second-largest economy in Africa. While disposing of an abundant supply of natural resources and a modern infrastructure, unemployment, poverty, and inequality remain a challenge. Read more
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Imagine an Earth Hour with Clean Energy for All
Published: 28 March 2015 Amélie Heuër, Carolin Ehrensperger
Today, on March 28th, thousands of cities around the world will turn off their lights during Earth Hour to draw attention to the urgent need to act on climate change. Even though the devastating impacts of climate change are becoming ever more visible, global carbon emissions – one of the main contributor to climate change – continue to rise at an alarming rate. Read more
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Creating inclusive value chains in plastic waste management is paramount for a green economy
Published: 11 February 2015 Amélie Heuër, Sophie van den Berg
For a long time, waste management and recycling were primarily discussed in the context of environmental preservation. However, with natural resources becoming scarcer and prices of raw materials increasing, it is no surprise that materials and energy recovered from recycling waste are gradually recognised as a valuable commodity, particularly by enterprises. Read more
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