Ethiopia following Zimbabwe on intrusive NGO laws?

The current country of concern is Ethiopia. This is of great concern to us since Ethiopia is one of the countries on our radar. The issue is the proposed law to regulate charities. It is being seen by some as an attempt to regulate a sprawling sector and block foreign political interference or a clampdown on civil society. Seeing as the legislators are still debating the proposed law and incremental changes are being made as they continue to debate, there is hope that civil society will be able to provide great input on how the government should regulate them.

I think it is essential for a country to have laws regulating civil society organizations, however, restricting their activities, especially human rights related activities is never good. Obviously the circumstances in Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, but there is no question that lots of negative legislation eventually has a detrimental impact on the development of the country.

Any input on the topic would be great.

For the full details of the article, go to:

http://en.afrik.com/article15084.html

The Social Enterprises of the Year by Fast Company

It is reading articles such as this that continue to inspire me. Kudos to all the winners and all the people making a difference in the world.

Watch the full slide show:
http://www.fastcompany.com/multimedia/slideshows/content/social-enterprises.html

Learning from the wise

I think it's great that baby boomers are being trained and encouraged to be engaged in social entrepreneurship. The younger generations can definitely learn a lot from their array of skills. I hope there is strong collaboration rather than having older people run organizations with younger people standing by. Let's see what happens....

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/business/13next.html?em

The birth of Transitional Trade

Greetings,

Recently I started Transitional Trade, a non profit organization that aims to promote socially inclined trade, investment and entrepreneurship in transitional communities and post conflict nations.

All my life, but especially since I moved to New York in March, I have met some very inspiring people that are working on many social issues and it inspired to follow my heart and follow a cause that is dear to me. Last year I traveled to Mozambique, a country that had been in war for years. It was the first post-conflict country I had been to. I was struck by the contradictions of bullet holes in the infrastructure yet the increased trade and development on the other. I was also struck by people's stereotypes of all the trade potential because people still perceived to be reeling from the war and thus an unsuitable location to invest. Despite not having been to a post-conflict country prior to Mozambique, I have, been to many so called "depressed communities", which I prefer to call transitional communities. I found that similar to many post-conflict nations, the stigma of war in countries or the dire situations in transitional communities seem to have an impact on whether people are willing to invest there.

After making those observations I decided to start doing things I feel could make a difference in increasing trade, investment and entrepreneurship in post-conflict nations and transitional communities. I have a few ideas of my own, but I am welcome to your suggestions too.

Thanks.