On November 22-23, 2017, PLEDDG Project held a two-day Inclusive Business Development Conference with the aim of raising awareness of representatives of Ukrainian cities about modern approaches to inclusive entrepreneurship development. The founders and managers of small and medium-sized enterprises, representatives of the central authorities, local self-governance bodies, civil society organizations, the Embassy of Canada to Ukraine, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, international technical assistance projects, and leading international and Ukrainian inclusive business development experts participated in the conference.
Karim Morcos, Head of Development Cooperation of the Embassy of Canada to Ukraine greeted conference participants on behalf of the Embassy of Canada. Mr. Morcos stressed that the exclusion of some parts of the population from a country’s economic life made no sense at all and that the inclusion of all members of society in economic processes would become a guarantee of the well-being and economic growth of any given country.
According to the First Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine, Maksym Nefyodov, inclusion is an important condition for a country’s GDP growth. He said that the inclusion of all citizens in the economic life of their country would see new ideas emerge and effective approaches to solving economic problems and creating a favorable business climate offered.
Deputy Minister of the Social Policy, Natalia Fedorovych, presented the Ministry’s policy on economic empowerment of women, disabled people, ATO veterans, internally displaced persons. She stressed the importance of inclusive approaches to entrepreneurship development, especially among vulnerable groups of population.
Oleg Nemchynov, State Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, in his presentation talked about the promotion of cooperation with youth civil society organizations as regards youth involvement into entrepreneurial activities.
Director of the Entrepreneurship Development and Regulatory Policy Department, Denis Gutenko, stressed the importance of inclusion in the process of development and implementation of Ukraine’s SMEs Development Strategy and an action plan for its implementation.
Bronwyn Cruden, Deputy Head of Development Cooperation of the Embassy of Canada to Ukraine, presented Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy. A new technical assistance policy will be implemented in 6 interrelated areas: gender equality and empowerment of women; human dignity; economic growth; environment and climate action; inclusive governance; peace and security. Bronwyn Cruden stressed the importance of poverty reduction and improvements in living conditions by providing comprehensive assistance to girls and women.
PLEDDG Project approaches to inclusive SME development in partner cities were described by Valeriy Kokot, PLEDDG Senior Expert in Business Development. PLEDDG efforts are aimed at creating an effective business-ecosystem in order to involve all social groups in entrepreneurship, with the focus on the most vulnerable groups in the labor market: women, youth, disabled people, internally displaced persons, ATO veterans.
Roman Zinchenko, Coordinator of Ukrainian energy innovations network Greencubator, discussed how “green” ideas could be transformed into innovative and successful eco-startups, which scale up successfully. Nisha Manocha, Head of Vaughan International Commercialization Center, Canada, further elaborated on the topic of “green” business. She talked about business commercialization promotion through technologies testing and providing production facilities for their implementation, promotion of environmentally safe methods, products and ideas, and utilizing of the networking and mentoring opportunities. Beth Woroniuk, Gender Equality Consultant, PLEDDG Project, spoke about supporting women entrepreneurs in Canada. According to the expert, the number of women-owned businesses is growing faster than the number of men-owned businesses. The role of women in Ukrainian business was covered by Yulia Zaika, Executive Director of the League of Business and Professional Women of Ukraine.
Raphael Kosta, Manager of the Vaughan Business Enterprise Center spoke about the development of the social SMEs in Canada. He presented successful examples of social enterprises in Canada and the training program on social entrepreneurship basics for non-for-profit organizations, which is a joint project of the Vaughan Business Enterprise Center and York Institute.
Valentyna Smal, PLEDDG Project Consultant and Director of the SV-Platform analytical center, presented a guide “Social Entrepreneurship Basics”, prepared in the framework of PLEDDG Project. The guide, among other things, defines the notion of “social entrepreneurship”, presents to the readers organizational and legal forms of the social enterprises, as well as best practices of their activities in Ukraine.
Andriy Kurkov, a popular Ukrainian writer and author of more than 20 books, was a special guest of the Conference. At the conference Andriy Kurkov presented his book “Emmaus movement: history of solidarity”. Emmaus community helps to regain a purpose in life and their place in the society to people that, in view of different life circumstances, were left behind. After the plenary session the work of the conference was continued in three parallel groups: “Social entrepreneurship”, “Business led by women or for women” and “Environmentally friendly business”.
“Social Entrepreneurship” group focused on the issues of active involvement of the socially vulnerable groups of population into entrepreneurship, in particular IDPs, ATO veterans, youth and women. Second working group focused on the “women” business and was looking for the ways to promote the involvement of women in difficult straits, to disseminate best practices of the inclusive women led businesses. Environmentally friendly business – this topic gathered the participants of the third working group, which suggested and discussed the ideas and the best practices of the “green” business development.
International experience of the inclusive enterprises development was presented by Nana Chkareuli, Manager of Ikorta Social Enterprise, Georgia. Nana Chkareuli is a displaced person from the South Ossetia, manages the social enterprise producing handmade decorations and employing displaced women.
Executive director of the social enterprise Inbox Training Center, NGO “Interkultura”, Zoran Velkovski, from Macedonia, spoke about this Balkan state experience of economic integration of the vulnerable groups of population.
The best models of inclusive business development were present at the fair during the first day of the conference, in particular:
Charitable organization “Syaivo Nadii” (Light of Hope), Poltava
- Civic association “Social enterprise “Training and Production Center”, Poltava
- Civil Society Organization “Maisternya Mrii”, Lviv
- First Anticafe of Berdyansk “CHAS YE”, Berdyansk
- Social enterprise Association of Citizens “Rukomysly”, Lviv
- Civic association “Cultural Entrepreneurship Association “PIK-ART”, Vinnytsia
- “Veterano Pizza” Pizzeria, Kyiv
- International Charitable Organization “Dolyna Charitable Fund”, Dolyna
- Charitable organization “Charitable Fund “Teple Misto” (Urban space), Ivano-Frankivsk
- Union of Zaporizhia ATO veterans, NGO, Zaporizhia
- Ukrainian Organic Cluster, Khmilnyk
- Union of Small and Medium-sized Exporters, Horishni Plavni
- League of Business and Professional Women of Ukraine, Chernihiv
- Lviv City Civil Society Organization “Community of Mutual Aid “Emmaus Oselya”, Lviv
- Nasinneva Skarbnytsia (Seeds Storehouse), Kyiv
- Hempire, Kyiv
The beginning of the second conference day was very rewarding – the representatives of three civil society organizations from Ukraine (SV-Platform), Georgia (For Better Future) and Macedonia (Intercultura) announced their signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation. The goal of cooperation is to promote, though joint efforts, inclusive business development in their countries and continue to provide support to socially vulnerable groups of population. The Memorandum is open for signing by all interested parties, striving to create international platform of inclusive business development.
Then, the panel discussion was held with the participation of the representatives of the international technical assistance programs, supporting inclusive business development. Among participants were Vasyl Nazaruk, Impact Investing Program Manager, Western NIS Enterprise Fund, Vitaliy Bokhnyak, National Expert of OSCE projects in Ukraine, Yulia Krevska, Project coordinator of the EBRD Small Business Initiative in Ukraine, Natalia Slynko, Deputy Director of the USAID “Leadership in Economic Governance (LEV)” Program and Ricardo Pinto, Senior expert of FORBIZ project.
An important result of the Conference was the Resolution with practical recommendations regarding inclusive business-ecosystem development and improving access of all members of society to economic benefits. The resolution will be subsequently sent to the main stakeholders in development and implementation of inclusive business development policy in Ukraine.
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RESOLUTION of the participants of the Inclusive Business Development Conference |
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