October 17, 2023 - The Switchers Support National Partnerships’ Regional Exchange Takes Off in La Marsa, Tunisia, Ready to Elevate to the Regional Level!

October 17, 2023, marked the exciting kick-off of the Switchers Support National Partnerships (SSNP) Regional Exchange in La Marsa, Tunisia. This one-day event was a dedicated platform for fostering knowledge exchange, collaboration, and the formulation of concrete strategies, all to ensure the continued success of SSNPs through consolidation at the national level and increased development in regional cooperation to new heights.

Nabil Hamdi from the Ministry of Environment of Tunisia, Mme Sallouha Bouzgarrou, Local Coordinator of the Green Entrepreneurship program at CITET, and Giorgio Mosangini, Team Leader of Green Entrepreneurship & Civil Society at MedWaves, initiated the morning welcome by emphasizing key aspects of the network implementation:

• Importance of a Unified Voice and Political Advocacy for Green Enterprises: Recognizing the significance of a unified voice and political advocacy to promote the interests of green enterprises.
• Enhancing Efficiency and Effectiveness through Support Structure Networks: Highlighting how support structure networks can contribute to increased efficiency, resource sharing, impacts and advocacy for enabling policies.
• Diversity of Organizations and Training of Trainers: Underlining the diversity of participating organizations and the importance of training trainers within the program.
• Ensuring the Sustainability of National Partnerships and Networks: Stressing the importance of ensuring the sustainability of national partnerships and networks.
• Identifying Funding Sources and Promoting Regional Collaboration: Discussing the identification of potential funding sources and promoting regional collaboration.
• Exploring Future Actions, Needs, and Interests for Regional Collaboration: Engaging in the exploration of future actions, needs, and interests to foster regional collaboration.

Before starting, solidarity with the Palestinian population and support for colleagues who were unable to attend was expressed, acknowledging the virtual presence of Olga V. Albatran in Palestine, Ghada Moghny (Senior Programme Coordinator at CEDARE in Egypt), and Krystel Khalil (Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Programs at Berytech).

After that, all the countries presented, and all the representatives shared their current status and the lessons they’ve learned from their respective countries. At midday, all the groups commenced their working sessions and debates, focusing on discussions related to the development strategies for the continuity of SSNP at the national and regional levels. Participants were invited to a critical exploration of analysis, achievements, and goals, setting the stage for a vibrant working session where representatives from Local Partner organizations and MedWaves’ Green Entrepreneurship team engaged in active participation and fruitful discussions.

Also, Artur Nadcrinicinii, an associated expert at MedWaves, presented consultancy findings based on more than 20 qualitative interviews with leading partners, BSOs, entrepreneurs, SSNPs members, and experts from the eight countries. Taking into account all these experiences with national partnerships, Artur addressed the importance of the regional level, highlighting the strengths related to collective problem-solving and resilience building. He also outlined how cross-border knowledge exchange, sharing expertise, and addressing regional challenges while leveraging resources can contribute to the development of regional infrastructure for sustainable and circular supply chains. At that stage of the conference, Artur delivered recommendations and strategies for strengthening regional cooperation, mobilising key actors, and working on the diversification of funding strategies. Finally, he provided an example of the European Business and Innovation Centre Network to illustrate how they put their management, services, and funding into practice.

Finally, all the members explored opportunities and ways to enhance collaboration at national and regional levels, ultimately crafting action plans for the future and agreeing on new steps to expand the network. It has been a great step forward, paving the way for the continuity of robust networks to come together during the event on October 17, 2023, in Tunisia.

November 10, 2022 - The Switchers Support Programme implementing partners at The SwitchMed Connect 2022 - Rimini

Last November 10th 2022, the first in-person discussion meeting with all SwitchMED program implementing partners was performed.

In the framework of the SwitchMED Connect event at Ecomondo international Fair at Rimini (Italy), Medwaves succeed to gather representatives from the 8 implementing countries of SwitchMED program. This event aimed to assemble all the local implementing partners, mentors and green entrepreneurship experts along with Medwaves managing staff in order to share experiences and lessons learnt from the program implementation process. Moreover, it was intended to address questions to all stakeholders or formulate proposals related to the improvement and sustainability of the program.

All the implementing partners introduced their own support national partnership represented by a large variety of stakeholders. They exposed their national green entrepreneurship ecosystems that might enable the creation and development of green and circular business models.

The open discussion came up with the flaws and strengthens of these newly created ecosystems along with other issues such as their sustainability, composition, management, governance or effectiveness. Local mentors also contributed with proposals for improvement of the methodology and tools, management of trainee’s expectation or enhance trainer’s skills.

The gathering raised awareness of all the common ground existing among the 8 implementing parties and the increasing need to create synergies and spaces of knowledge and experience’s exchange, not only between Business Support Organizations but also among mentors, trainers and other involved green entrepreneurship experts.

All partners made possible to have this fruitful experience that encourage all of us to be involved in the creation of an enabling regional ecosystem for the acceleration of a green and circular entrepreneurship in the Mediterranean region. Such ecosystem is intended to thrive within the recently created ACT network framework.

July 18, 2022 - Exchange of experiences between BSO’s

Medwaves have hold the first online meeting to exchange experiences between the Support National Partnerships (SNP) of green BSO who contribute to enable an ecosystem of Green Business support services. The interactive event allowed to share best practices and analyse the main drivers and challenges concerning the creation of green business ecosystems in the Mediterranean region. Main conclusions will be discussed during the upcoming SwitchMed Connect event 2022.

For those who did not have the opportunity to attend the event, here is the video of the meeting and the SNP presentations

Click here to download the presentation

February 14, 2022 - Webinar: Supporting sustainable badge for the BSO's

In order to promote sustainability mainstreaming, the Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC) is developing a Sustainability Badge to help Business Support Organizations (BSOs) to review their practices in delivering support to entrepreneurs and ventures. The workshop will introduce the concept and the goals of the Supporting Sustainability Badge and collect feedbacks from participants to guide the development and testing of the Badge.

Click here to download the presentation

For those who did not have the opportunity to attend the webinar, here is the session recording:

December 21, 2021 - Webinar: Open Eco-innovation for circular economy enablers

The Regional Activity Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP/RAC) is showcasing the Open Eco-Innovation Manual for Circular Economy Enablers that provides a detailed approach of the process enablers need to develop in order to facilitate connections between companies and entrepreneurs.
In this webinar, the manual was be presented so enablers can understand the importance of their role in making an open eco-innovation initiative a success.

For those who did not have the opportunity to attend the webinar, here is the video of the meeting.