I was very impressed by the hospitality and the courage to take on this massive challenge by the Ethiopians, after all, they have been living in fear for the last 50 years, torn by war and corruption. It is only in the last two years that Ethiopians have been able to live without fear and just recently, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed received the 2019 Noble Peace Prize for making peace with their neighbour Eritrea. 

The forum was more than just a conference. For me, it was an amazing immersive cultural experience. I got to meet, converse, dine and dance with people from all round the world, Despite our cultural differences, our borders and our distances, I felt at home. Our goal was the same and that goal connected all of us.  

I witnessed people from around the world driving for the change they wanted to see, to better their communities. Having followed the social enterprise movement in Australia, the social enterprise model that I am accustomed to is one where a social enterprise is set up to provide support or resolve a certain social issue. For example, cafes that provide employment for disadvantaged youth, a cleaning business that provides employment for people with disabilities, a catering business to provide employment for refugees. Often the driving force of these enterprises are passionate individuals who have seen first-hand the difficulties experienced by these disadvantaged communities.

What was interesting is, countries like Ethiopia or Kenya’s social enterprises are driven by the community. 

The community come together collectively to decide on the priorities, whether it is providing funding for books so that children can attend school, or investing in farmers.

It appeared that in countries where there is lack of government support towards social issues, communities take charge in creating their own governance to ensure the sustainability of the community. The tendency is towards co-operative communities. Many of these examples were shared during the Urban Study in Ethiopia where we visited community-driven social enterprises, like Indigenous organisation Jerusalem Children and Community Development Organisation JeCCDO.  

I also heard from rural village leaders about how the community organises itself to ensure everyone in the community is supported and looked after. In small villages where the population might be 500 people, everyone that can, is asked to make a small financial contribution; a membership fee or you might even want to call it a tax. The money from these fees is used to create opportunities and benefits for the local community, in the form of employment, discounted food, women and children education. How the money is spent is decided collectively by the village.

I had the pleasure of being part of a plenary “Engaging with traditional knowledge and Indigenous resources’ with panellists from Ghana, Canada, New Zealand and Ethiopia. What all the panellists shared was that whilst for some of them, the term social enterprise was new to them, their communities and villages practiced it as a way of living.