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| Cath Traynor |
Cath Traynor of Natural Justice attended the 2014 SEED South Africa Symposium “Advancing the Green Economy: creating jobs and opportunities
for green enterprises” held on 19-20 March 2014 in Pretoria, South Africa. SEED
stands for supporting entrepreneurs for sustainable development. Natural
Justice’s Bio-cultural Community Protocols was a 2009 Gold winner in the SEED
awards.
Over 150 participants including 40 entrepreneurs from
private sector, civil society, academia, media, and government gathered to
exchange experience, knowledge and perspectives that could advance the growth
of socio-environmental entrepreneurship in South Africa. Sessions included
creating green jobs and the impact of social and environmental start-ups,
growing enterprises, and barriers, success factors and enablers to support
enterprises. Key issues that arose included accessing financing during the
initial phases of start-ups, encouraging investors to deal with risks and to
understand the human value of initiatives, the limited voice and impact small
enterprises have at policy level, the lack of understanding of the potential of
SMMEs within the general public, and also insufficient support from government
and within the regulatory environment. Discussions focussed upon finding
solutions to common problems experienced by small enterprises in South Africa.
The symposium included a Marketplace with SEED winners
including Natural Justice, where there were opportunities to engage with
innovative start-up enterprises working at the local level. A new Social
Enterprise Fund set up by the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and
supported by the Flemish Government was launched.
The SEED Awards for Entrepreneurs in Sustainable Development
is currently open for submissions for 2014 and the deadline is 8th April 2014.
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