To participate any country forum, please click Apply For Country Forum

We are happy to inform you that last year’s event will be held once again on the Country Forum for the Social Business Day 2018. 

What is SBD Country Forum?

Country Forum involves breakout-sessions and plenary on selected countries, provinces and regions which boasts a strong social business ecosystem. Each country forum within the time slot will organize their own programme and review how social business is taking shape in their countries. Participants in these country forums will discuss the actual practice of social businesses, who is doing what, and explore further potential of growth in the selected countries/regions and discuss upcoming roles and plan.

The participants would then prepare an action plan for there selected country/region covering the next 1 year the summary of which will be subsequently presented in the plenary.

To learn in details about Country Forum, click Country Forums. See below to apply at the selected countries/regions .

Apply For Country Forum

Objectives:

FFundamental objectives of the forum:

• Networking and community building leading to action will be the essence of the Forum.
• Initiating dialogue, debate, and networking centered around social business.
• Creating new ideas and interesting discussions between people of different backgrounds and experiences from the same country or region who are working in the field of social business. Learning about existing social businesses in the area and offering support to them to expedite their growth.
• Presenting social business plans that require investment support.
• Networking with local, national and international investors who will introduce themselves and explain how they want be involved in social businesses in their country.
• Understanding the usefulness of social business in achieving social objectives for the greater good of the country.
• Holding meaningful discussions among policy makers, social activists, NGO leaders about the possibilities of creating social business villages, cities, districts, etc.
• Creating follow-up programs and action plans for next year's forum.

Format and Roles:

• June 29, the second day of the Social Business Day (SBD) is allocated for holding Country Forums. Actual working time available for Forum discussion will be two hours, from 11:15 am to 1:15 pm in the form of breakout sessions.
• Each Country Forum will have a ‘Lead Organizer’ and ‘Facilitator’
• A person is dedicated as the ‘Lead Organizer’ for each country/region who facilitates the whole process
• The ‘Lead Organizer’ who acts as the country/region representative will be responsible for informing the Yunus Centre about delegates joining their session.
• The ‘Lead Organizer’ will formulate a ‘Forum Organizing Committee’ of their respective forum that constitutes of: Chair, Secretary, Member.
• Facilitators are SBD organizers from the Grameen network who will be assigned to each Country Forum to cater to any needs of the organizer.
• Facilitators will get in touch with the Chair of the Forum Organizing Committee days before the delegates arrive to find out the requirements of the Forum organizers and provide those facilities.
• The Lead Organizer or Chair will communicate and coordinate with the dedicated Yunus Centre official and respective Facilitator
• The Forum organizing committee will inform Yunus Centre and the Facilitator of the number of people expected in each Forum, if they are expecting local delegates (companies/organizations from their countries operating in Bangladesh, embassy officials, members of NGOs working in Bangladesh etc.
• It is the responsibility of the Forum to interest a group of persons to join and register for the SBD registered ahead of time to participate in the Forum.
• The Organizing Committee is responsible to devise the plan for their respective session, select speakers, and bring in sector leaders and enthusiasts
• The 2 hour break-out session will be followed by a 30 minute Plenary session where representative of the Country Forum will briefly present summary of their discussion and action plan.
• participants need to register themselves through the link for Country Forum. There is no separate registration fee; the registration for the whole SBD will cover participation in the forum
• External participants who wish to take part in a specific Country Forum has to follow the link below and can communicate the Forum’s respective Organizing Committee (TBA) informing the committee of their participation
• If any Forum organizers have any question regarding the Forum they may direct those questions to the Facilitator in Dhaka, or Lamiya Morshed of Yunus centre.
• Chairs of organizing committees may hold briefing meetings with their respective SBD Facilitators prior to June 29, 2018. They can mutually arrange these meetings. These can be Skype or Facetime meetings. SBD counterparts will attend their respective Forums to help resolve any logistical issue during the Forum.
• We encourage each country forum to take notes during the process and produce a short report in English for each Forum. The Report should also contain suggestions for future reading. In addition to English report Forums may produce their reports in the language in which discussions took place.

Sessions:

Each Forum will decide its sessions and their topics. There may be mixture of brief speeches, panel discussions, moderated talks, Pecha Kucha presentations, etc.

Leading participants in the Forum may be introduced to the audience.

• Forum may begin by welcoming the delegates.
• Introduction to the format and purpose of the Forum.
• Forum is likely to end with a structure for future networking among the delegates present and future interested individuals, for sharing information amongst each other.
• Announcement that Forum wants to end with a draft Action plan to cover a period until the end of 2018.
• A draft action plan may be circulated; a panel discussion may be conducted on it so that people have an opportunity to debate on issues to finalize theaction plan later. A drafting committee for finalization of action plan may be announced.
• Final action plan should be announced no later than the end of August.
• A facilitating committee (FC) and location of its secretariat may be announced. Chairman of the FC will be the key
• These are only ideas to consider, not a prescribed format. Each country forum will decide the format according to what they would like to accomplish.

Professor Yunus may come over to each Forum for a brief period to greet the delegates and have an idea of the Forum

List of country forums in Social Business Day 2018:

• Bangladesh
• India
• China, Hong Kong, Taiwan
• Japan
• Europe
• Australia, New Zealand, Philippines
• Latin America and Africa
• Malaysia and Thailand