cewas ME

Building the future of water and environmental entrepreneurship in the Middle East

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Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine
  • 2013 - ongoing

  • Clients

    SDC, IsDB, GIZ, Asfari Foundation, WFP, Konrad Adendauer Stiftung, among others.

    Beneficiaries

    Direct: entrepreneurial ecosystem actors (from finance, business and academia), local water and environmental entrepreneurs and WASH practitioners.
    Indirect: Refugees and host communities in the MENA region.

    Key Partners

    Berytech, Fondation Diane, BORDA, LEWAP, INJAZ, Palestine Polytechnic University, Blackforest Solutions, etc.

    The Middle East is facing a rapidly changing economic and environmental landscape. To support innovation and sustainability around these challenges, we launched cewas Middle East in 2013.

    cewas Middle East, a regional branch of the Swiss NGO cewas, was established to foster innovation and sustainability in the water and environmental sector. cewas is working on developing and implementing entrepreneurial approaches by building an enabling ecosystem, offering technical assistance, tailor-made coaching, training, and financial support to entrepreneurs.

     

    cewas Middle East is present in four core countries with local staff and programmes tailored to the respective geographical, economic and environmental contexts. Together with our partners, we also work in other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, including Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia.

     

     

    Until today, cewas the Middle East has supported over 100 enterprises across the region; built a vast network of local, regional and international partners supporting environmental entrepreneurship; and developed and implemented a broad range of pieces of training to enhance knowledge among water and sanitation actors and generate demand in humanitarian and development markets.

     

    To support entrepreneurs in transforming their business ideas into enterprises, we actively build their capacities and opportunities through tailor-made training, programmes, collaborations, and financial management.

     

    In detail, the carry out the following activities:

     

    Explore and discover

    • We work together with key stakeholders from the environmental sector, the entrepreneurship sector and the financial sector to create and enhance the entrepreneurial ecosystem for water, sanitation and waste entrepreneurs. Our focus lies on developing robust ecosystem support services in business development, finance and talent growth.

     

    Co-create and design

    • cewas Middle East’s engagement and initiation of ecosystem networks, particularly in green business and financing in Jordan and Lebanon, resulted in the Green Entrepreneurship Network Jordan and the Ecoswitch Coalition in Lebanon, which aim to tackle governance and institutional topics to green entrepreneurship jointly.

     

    Empower

    • Cewas Middle East runs dedicated entrepreneurship programmes supporting entrepreneurs in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, and other countries in the MENA region. Our programs support entrepreneurs at all stages of their business’ life cycle and focus on ensuring maximum impact and inclusion of vulnerable groups into business models. We also work in parallel to raise awareness among future clients, partners, and donors to recognise and support water- and environmental entrepreneurship.

     

    Reach and connect

    • Environmental entrepreneurs depend on the capacity of markets they are operating in, mostly limited to NGO and donor efforts or niche sectors of environmentally conscious consumers. Through training cewas Middle East enables decision makers to move from project-based to more sustainable water and sanitation interventions, considering market-based approaches that can mobilise environmental solutions adequately adapted to culture and local context and support local economies.

    • Furthermore, cewas Middle East is continuously developing innovative knowledge products, such as the toolset on “Marketable SSWM Business Models for the Middle East” and the toolbox on “Developing green markets and supporting entrepreneurial ecosystems for the Middle East” with a focus on ‘Investment Readiness’.

     

     

    Links to publications

    Let’s work together!

    Find out more about some of our key activities and upcoming programmes below. If you are interested in collaborating with us, do not hesitate to reach out!

    Contact us