Social Entrepreneurship in Development Cooperation discussed in Vilnius

Lithuanian National non-governmental development cooperation organisations Platform organised the conference “Non-governmental Development Cooperation Organisations: Social Entrepreneurship” on the 7th of September 2012 in Vilnius.

The main goals of the event were to introduce the audience to the concept of social entrepreneurship and practice in relation to development cooperation, as well as to present best practices and discuss whether social entrepreneurship is a long-term solution in development cooperation. A further aim was to present national recommendations on social entrepreneurship which later will be presented to the decision makers on the national level. Presenting social entrepreneurship practice, Mindaugas Danys, director of Lithuanian Social and Economic Development Centre, emphasized that social entrepreneurship can play an important role in development cooperation solving environmental, poverty and other problems, but certain conditions must be created within the country for development of social entrepreneurship initiatives. Representatives of the non-governmental organisations presented their best practices implementing social entrepreneurship activities and the achieved results.

It was noted that Lithuanian NGOs need to get stronger, analyze their own and international practices as well as to change the focus of their activities by encouraging the recipient countries to get more involved in social entrepreneurship initiatives. The conference was attended by 18 Lithuanian experts and practitioners from NDGOs and governmental institutions.

For more information, please contact Justė Kelpšaitė at jkelpsaite@gip-global.org.

Information provided by Justė Kelpšaitė, Lithuanian National Platform of Development NGOs