Deadline: 13-Oct-22
The Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Future Lab for Innovation and Policy – a collaborative partnership between SEED and GO4SDGs – offers a platform for green SME stakeholders, such as policy makers, financiers and entrepreneurs, to make the agriculture and food sector ready for 2030 by developing future-proof solutions for today’s challenges.
The participatory lab process will connect policy makers, intermediaries and SMEs in a co-creation setting in order to develop tailored solutions in five action areas such as Innovation, Non-Financial Support, Finance, Policy and Market. The cocreated solutions will provide concrete action items in how to better support Latin American and Caribbean green SMEs applying circular technologies or business models operating in the agriculture and food sector.
The LAC Future Lab was designed to engage a community of 30-40 participants leveraging the expertise of key green SME stakeholders across the region. The LAC Lab is part of a Global Lab Series that engages green SME stakeholders in the Agri-Food sector in Africa and Latin America and the Textile-Fashion sector in Asia and West Asia. The practical insights of the regional labs will inform a New Green SME Action Agenda and the I-GO solution supporting the global advocacy efforts of the growing green SME community leading the way for future SME policies and frameworks.
Objectives
The objective of the Future Lab series is to
- Support the design of future-proof solutions that serve the needs of SMEs to embrace innovation for circularity, covering key regional priority sectors such as textiles, construction, agriculture-food and plastics.
- Leverage expertise, experience and assets of key green SME stakeholders to co-create futureproof solutions that scale-up financing and policy actions for green SMEs
Outcomes
The Future Labs intend to generate the following outcomes
- The Labs will connect key green SME stakeholders in the co-creation of future-proof solutions that scale-up financing and policy actions for green SMEs while informing the New Sustainable SMEs Action Agenda.
- The Labs will increase the knowledge of SMEs and SME stakeholders on the critical role of resource efficiency, circularity and access finance for green SMEs
Target Audience
The Future Lab targets green SMEs and organisations, who work at the interface of business, civil society and politics supporting green SMEs or circular economy solutions. It aims to advance an evidence-based joint action agenda engaging key policy makers, intermediaries and green SMEs. It is designed to forge direct collaboration and to co-create future-proof solutions addressing the needs of green SMEs.
For more information, visit https://seed.uno/articles/blog/lac-future-lab-for-innovation-and-policy