Second SEAL Asia Conference

Over 90 participants representing 10 countries attended the Second Social Enterprise Advocacy and Leveraging Conference in Asia (SEAL-Asia) held on September 26-30, 2017 at the H Sovereign Bali Hotel, Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. The Conference was organized by the Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia (ISEA) in cooperation with a Local Organizing Committee led by Dompet Dhuafa Philanthropy and Bina Swadaya Foundation.  The Conference was supported by Japan Foundation Asia Center, Oxfam and the Swedish Government.  SEAL-Asia was envisioned as a regional platform to promote social entrepreneurship and the social enterprise sector as a major player in addressing poverty, inequality and sustainable development in the region.

The four-day event with the theme, “Social Enterprise: Addressing Inequality for a Just Economy” served as a venue for learning exchange on social enterprise impacts and the sustainable development goals (SDGs). It brought together representatives from social enterprises, social entrepreneurship organizations, networks and resource institutions in Asia, practitioners and scholars engaged in social impact measurement in the region, and resource persons from the government and the business sector.

The conference served as a venue for sharing perspectives, experiences and insights on social entrepreneurship and impact measurement in Asia. The conference featured 4 parallel sessions that showcased 12 significant practices on impact measurement among social enterprises and social entrepreneurship initiatives from Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Japan, Hongkong and Singapore.  Three of these were cases developed by ISEA in cooperation with Dompet Dhuafa, Bina Swadaya and Gandang Kalikasan using the tools of social return on investment and development indexing. 

The conference featured a dialogue on the role of social enterprises in advancing the SDGs with UNESCAP; a discussion on the Benchmarks for Transformational Partnerships and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Agricultural Value Chains as aspirational standards for such initiatives to contribute to the SDGs; social entrepreneurship models addressing poverty and inequality in Indonesia featuring  the experiences of Bina Swadaya, Dompet Dhuafa and Dian Desa; and a field visit to Mitra Bali, a social enterprise practicing the 10 Fair Trade Principles espoused by the World Fair Trade Organization.