CP/RAC spoke on scaling-up green entrepreneurship in MENA at the International Business Forum in Istanbul

Created by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and organized by GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), the International Business Forum highlights innovative business approaches and market-based solutions that harness the capabilities of private sector players and address development challenges.

This year’s debate at IBF 2013 was about green and inclusive businesses emphasizing how poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability objectives are closely linked and can support each other. While, inclusive business focuses on the role of market-based approaches to reducing poverty, green business focus on reducing resource consumption and protecting biodiversity.   About 300 participants from several dozens of countries representing big businesses, entrepreneurs, NGOs, service providers, intergovernmental organisations and policy-makers attending the event quickly agreed that both approaches would be complementary and there are many examples around the world. From the keynotes and first plenary, the next big collective challenge was clear: “How can green & inclusive businesses be scaled-up?”

Parallel workshops on market linkages, policies, finance and capacities in response to this big collective challenge took place. Sector specific workshops diving deeper into energy, agriculture, SCP, water and ICT themes also took place. The Changing Markets Award finalists made a pitch to the participants on the first day asking for more votes and the winners Banka Bioloo, Ciudad Saludable, Tara Machines were announced at the end of the conference.

CPRAC spoke at the session focusing on Turkey and the MENA region. The green and inclusive business cases Çöp(m)adam, Taze Kuru, Paulownia presented their story and highlighted the challenges they are facing as they struggle to increase their impact and expand their activities. GIZ’s ICE-RIBH, DANIDA Business Partnership and CPRAC as business enablers and ecosystem builders gave a broader perspective to the region. Burcu Tunçer, associated expert to the SWITCH-Med Programme of CPRAC presented 5 top challenges for scaling-up green entrepreneurship:

1) Weak market pull - Conscious consumers have not yet arrived. Middle class in the region doesn‘t see sustainability as part of product and service quality.

2) Lack of capacity – Entrepreneurs would need to learn how to talk to investors, market their products, communicate their development impact and motivate their staff.

3) Weak culture of partnership - Wanda’ (‘torpil’) is needed to be overcome. Entrepreneurs should work together.

4) Need for innovative finance - Innovative ways of providing green start-up capital is needed. A combination of venture finance, angels, crowd-funding…

5) Policy instruments - Policy framework is at times absent and not helping the build the business case. There is lack of regulatory weight and uncertainty.

At the table discussions, the most urgent and repeatedly mentioned challenge was access to finance. It was said that intermediaries such as CPRAC should work to mobilize investors from CSR programmes of big business, foundations, family offices, angels to microfinance and venture capital and raise awareness among them on the financing needs of green and inclusive entrepreneurs.

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