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More than 200 entrepreneurs, practitioners, investors and policymakers made the SEED South Africa Symposium on March 15-16^th 2016 a great success. Focusing on the overarching topic Unlocking capital, boosting support the Symposium once again demonstrated its high value in collaboratively discussing and developing approaches to build the ecosystem for eco-entrepreneurship in South Africa. We summarized some of the most important moments of #SEEDSAS16 below:

Announcement of the 2016 SEED Accelerators

The two 2015 SEED Africa Winners Electricity4all Malawi and Baobab Products Mozambique have successfully gone through the SEED Support programme last year and are now looking forward to delivering their social and environmenta

l solutions at a larger scale. Through the generous support of the Government of Flanders, SEED provides advanced financial support combined with one-to-one support on financial management and access to capital to those inspiring enterprises.

 ILO's session on up-scaling social-environmental entrepreneurship models in South Africa

Hosted by the Principal Partner of this year's Symposium, the International Labour Organisation the session “Towards Inclusive Green Economies” drew on innovative methodologies to promote social dialogue and created an improved understanding among donors, policymakers and ecosystem actors on key factors and gaps at the ecosystem level.

giz's "Practitioners‘ Dialogue on Climate Investments" joined #SEEDSAS16

How to put the Paris Climate Agreement into practice? Hosted in collaboration with Practitioners’ Dialogue on Climate Investments (PDCI) the relevance of the Paris Climate Agreement and each country’s previously announced contribution to this deal for the national private sector were discussed in a highly interactive session. PDCI’s participants from all over the world added furthermore valuable international perspectives to all discussions at this year’s South Africa Symposium.

EU-perspectives on eco-innovation

SEED was highly honoured to welcome H.E. Ambassador Marcus Cornaro, Head of the EU Delegation to the Republic of South Africa providing valuable insights on recent policies and activities of the European Union to tackle economic and environmental issues collaboratively through a circular green economy

 SEED Investor Forum

Successfully started in 2015, the Investor Forum continued connecting impact investors with potential investees in an innovative and participatory manner. Selected deal-ready social and environmental enterprises were trained for a closed-door pitch to investors and other funding institutions. Special formats for Impact Investors offered a unique opportunity for accessing best practices and exploring the finance landscape for early-stage innovations in South Africa.

Over 30 social and environmental enterprises showcased at the SEED marketplace

Running in parallel to the Symposium the SEED marketplace showcased innovative, locally-driven, entrepreneurial approaches to sustainable development challenges of social and eco enterprises from across the country. Exhibition participants included the SEED Winners as well as partners of the Symposium and organisations working in the field of social entrepreneurship.

Inspiring panel discussions and keynote speeches

High-level speakers from South Africa and all over the world shared insights on approaches to collaboratively build the ecosystem for eco-entrepreneurship. The discussions tackled aspects of financial support for eco-entrepreneurs, focusing actions South Africa could take to attract more impact investment, as well as non-financial support, focusing on how to streamline the landscape of Business Development Support Services.