ANDE Action Labs convene members to ideate and prototype solutions to systemic challenges in the SGB sector. The key stages involved in the action lab include learn, image & ideate, create and test.
The Kenya climate and environmental action lab involved in-person engagements to convene practitioners and spark actionable collaborations at local and global levels of engagement. The goal of these convenings was to identify barriers to success, improve existing solutions, and ideate new solutions to promote experimentation around solutions to systems-level challenges obstructing progress for ANDE members in achieving SDG 6, 7 and 13 goals.
The initiative sought to ensure Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) are equipped to contribute to SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), 7 (affordable and clean energy), and 13 (climate action) by promoting investments and effective support services for environment & climate-related small and growing businesses (SGBs) that help mitigate climate change and environmental degradation.
Expected outcomes: “advocacy package(s)” for 1 or more vetted ready-to-fund initiatives, backed by early-stage evidence supporting this initiative’s ability to generate its intended impact, along with a short publication of additional learnings.
This Action Lab is part of the larger Kenya Green Entrepreneurial Ecosystem project supported by IKEA Foundation that aims to act as a platform for intermediaries who are working to support entrepreneurs and innovators looking to tackle environment-related issues and climate action with the overarching goal of increasing on-ground entrepreneur support towards a more sustainable tomorrow. It seeks to push sector participants from discussion to action by putting new or not-yet-implemented solutions into practice. The Action Lab can focus on a number of potential promising solutions that can be tested in the given time frame with the available resources and connections.
After the successful inception meeting of the action lab held on 24th August 2022 the last stage was held on 6th December 2022 after undergoing four stages namely learn phase, imagine phase, create phase and test phase.
At the end, action lab participants came up with promising solutions in form of two prototypes which they tested and came up with a final refined idea for pitching. The participants decided to focus on the circular economy and waste management sector for this action lab. There are two groups in the action lab, one focusing on technical assistance facility and the second one focusing on investment fund facility.
More details about the action lab project will be shared in due time.
ANDE contact: Francis Gitau
This learning lab will seek to provide a space for comprehensive discussion, knowledge sharing and knowledge creation. We aim for it to act as a platform for intermediaries who are working to support entrepreneurs and innovators looking to create decent, quality jobs. We will focus on understanding what the different aspects of a ‘quality job’ are, the role that intermediaries play in supporting SGBs to create these and what are metrics that could be used to measure progress around decent job creation.
ANDE Township Economies Learning Labs serve as a community of practice where we will dive deep into the already existing interventions of capacity development, market and capital access, investment linkages and non-financial support for township entrepreneurs.
This learning lab aims to address the gap in data about the effectiveness of accelerators, focusing on the East and Southeast Asia region.
ANDE Action Labs convene members to ideate and prototype solutions to systemic challenges in the SGB sector. This group is ANDE’s inaugural laboratory for tackling constraints specific to SGBs and the intermediaries that support them in environmental industries.
Each chapter's gender equality action lab will ideate and prototype solutions to systemic gender inequities in the SGB sector. They convene regularly and will conclude with a funding challenge to scale promising solutions.
This lab aims to act as a platform for intermediaries who are working to support entrepreneurs and innovators looking to tackle environment-related issues and climate action with the overarching goal of increasing on-ground entrepreneur support towards a more sustainable tomorrow. It will launch in the second half of 2021.