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
We have opened applications for our third cohort of the MAN Impact Accelerator and we are calling on European, African and Brazilian mobility and logistics social business startups!
A social business needs to deliver results in three core areas; social impact, financial sustainability, and organisational resilience. But in order to mature in these areas businesses need more than just capital; they also require non-financial support, training and access to networks.
Fresh water is abundant in Bangladesh, in the form of numerous groundwater resources that are shallow and easy to exploit. However, for essentially geological reasons, almost all of the groundwater is contaminated with arsenic, very often at levels that make it a health hazard.