Ukraine & Eastern Europe Chapter

In response to our growing membership in the region Catalyst 2030 launched our Eastern European Chapter in 2022 anchored in Ukraine. The Chapters is committed to championing the social economy and supporting entrepreneurs and social innovators during the war and in post-war development in Ukraine.

Catalyst 2030 has an on-the-ground Chapter coordinator working directly with proximate leaders who are responding to the current crisis and unique challenges. The Chapter and its members have ambitious plans to both respond to emergencies with humanitarian assistance, as well as lay the foundations for a thriving social economy.

We are urgently seeking partners who are looking to invest directly into rebuilding Ukraine and facilitate long term social development.

We have ambitious plans for the next three years to expand the scope and network from Ukraine into Central and Eastern Europe, with an initial focus on: Bulgaria, Croatia and the Czech Republic.

Download our Ukraine & Eastern Europe Concept Note to learn more 

How the philanthropic, private, and public sectors can work together to create an enabled environment for the social economy.

The event showcased how the movement is collectively organising for change and working together to create an enabling environment for the social economy.

Co-hosted with Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, the event focused on how the philanthropic, private and public sectors can work together to create an enabled environment for the social economy. The event brought together sector leaders who shared insights and best practices on how they are working to foster social innovation.

We heard from Dr John Mugo, RELI network member and Executive Director, Zizi Afrique Foundation,  who was joined by Joyce Malombe, Program Director, Wellspring Philanthropy, Dr Wamuyu Mahinda, Managing Partner and Convener, Collaborative Value Partners – Africa, and Alexandra van der Ploeg, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, SAP. The panel, moderated by Dr François Bonnici, shared insights on the importance of funders, governments and corporates working together to provide an enabling environment for the social economy and building the future together, to accelerate progress on attaining the SDGs.

You can learn more about Catalyst 2030 enabling environment work and an explanation why this is such a key strategic area for us to advance here.

Africa Forward changing the narrative

Africa Forward is a groundbreaking initiative co-created by members of the African Chapters of Catalyst 2030 to rapidly accelerate actions that place our continent’s challenges at the heart of collaborative, partnership driven opportunities.

Africa Forward’s objective is to support the next cohort of social entrepreneurs as we collaborate on innovative pathways and solutions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on the continent.

Our goal is to achieve strategic shifts focusing on five Pillars, evolving the social enterprise and entrepreneurial ecosystem to create strong, supportive and collaborative social impact. Our five key areas of impact include:

Narrative shift
Restructure the approach to African narratives by profiling the African leadership of local social enterprises

Ecosystem development
Undertake initiatives to enable cooperation between governments and social entrepreneurs to strengthen the social enterprises ecosystem through collaboration and wellbeing initiatives

Funding
Redirect approaches to funding to ensure that at least 50% of all funding goes to African led organisations directly, without the use of intermediaries and with particular consideration for youth and gender focused organisations.

Job creation and career counselling
Expand the number of jobs in the social sector by 10% and use workforce development programmes and career counselling to recruit skilled African employees and bring young people into the sector.

Training and capacity development
Impart practical skills and knowledge on Social Enterprises to help organisations scale their initiatives and satisfy funder accountability requirements.

Engaging Government Success Story

Launched in Catalysing Change Week 2021, members from different ministries were speaking in a chapter session. Conversations with the government continued following the sharing of the New Allies report of Catalyst 2030. Now conversations continue to include recommendations in the Blueprint for social economy that the government will launch this year. More recently, the chapter participated in the consultation rounds with the Ministry of Finance for the budget of 2022.

The Chapter has continued to work closely with the National government and in the last month they organized a round table discussion with the Economic Action Council Secretariat under the Prime Minister’s Office (Malaysia) and various social enterprises to listen to their policy thoughts and inputs.

The policy recommendations from this discussion would be critical for the EAC to shape the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Malaysia including the tax exemptions statuses, national accreditation system and annual grant disbursements. Most recently, the Chapter has been identified by the government as a significant partner for supporting social entrepreneurship as they develop the country’s Social Entrepreneurship Action Framework 2030.