Yunus Social Busines (YSB) and its sister organisation Zero Poverty Ventures are cooperating with Global Social Impact (GSI) and the Open Value Foundation, founded by María Ángeles, to bring expansion funding to high potential Social Businesses in East Africa.
Professor Muhammud Yunus joined the Open Value Foundation and the Global Social Impact Fund team this weekend in Santander to celebrate the partnership and speak to university students in Spain.
The GSI Fund have provided further financing to some of our YSB portfolio companies in Uganda. These include Tugende, a moto-taxi financing business that secures higher incomes and the opportunities for micro-entrepreneurs to own their own business and Ankole Coffee Producers' Cooperative Union (ACPCU), a coffee cooperative bringing together farmers to secure higher prices and better working conditions.
At both GSI and YSB we believe in working together to expand the eco-system of social businesses and support network available to them. Therefore, it is vitally important to connect social businesses with further funding where possible and we look forward to more collaboration in the future!
ACPCU in UgandaACPCU in Uganda
IKEA Foundation and Yunus Social Business carried out a 6-month joint research project, getting to the bottom of this question: With ever more organisations joining social-business ecosystems, how can we all start to plug the gaps in the support landscape?
Why do we need a social sector? Shouldn’t businesses create economic opportunities and governments ensure a just distribution of these opportunities and set incentives and boundaries such that the environment is protected?