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“When human beings set their mind to get something done, they just do it. Nothing is impossible for human beings.”
Prof. Muhammad Yunus
Build Back Better
The Build Back Better Social Business Program (BBB), a collaborative effort by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) through the Employment and Skills for Development in Africa (E4D) Programme, and Yunus Environment Hub (YEH), has successfully concluded its 16-month initiative. The program supported 25 social businesses in Kenya to harness the advantages of the circular economy for a sustainable and resilient recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The program supported the transformation of social businesses to become more circular, resilient, and economically sustainable with a focus on green job creation. Throughout the program, 35% of the supported businesses were women-owned, and 40% were youth-owned. The initiative addressed various societal and global environmental challenges faced by social businesses, including unsafe work environments, climate change-related issues, cash flow shortages, disrupted supply chains, and resource depletion in the economy.
During the program, social business entrepreneurs participated in in-person trainings, individualised coaching sessions and virtual master classes from subject matter experts, helping them to advance in the following areas:
- Upskilling on circular business models, and support to identify opportunities to implement circular strategies in their social business and along their value chain.
- Expertise in social business diagnostics, market assessment, and circular and green opportunity mapping.
- Impact metric measurement tools and storytelling techniques to share their impact for potential clients, funders and other key stakeholders.
- Guidance to access new markets, positioning themselves effectively, and supporting the market entry of new products and services.
- Financial readiness support, pitch deck preparation and the opportunity to pitch their circular strategy to selected funders at the BBB Pitch Day, along with post-event guidance on due diligence processes and to implement feedback and advice from funders.
Meet the social businesses
and their circular solutions
For further information on the impact and outcomes of the Build Back Better Social Business Program, please visit the CirculaRise Accelerator page.