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At the Global Professional Fellowship in Green Urban Innovation & Social Entrepreneurship, Tangelic Executive Director Jesston Williams presented "Ownership as a Development Strategy."

Drawing on implementation experience in Ghana, the session explored why sustainable development succeeds when communities own the infrastructure, governance, enterprises, and financial systems that shape their future.

Real resilience begins with ownership.

#SustainableDevelopment #CommunityDevelopment #ClimateFinance #Tangelic
Transcript
00:00to the next speaker mr justin williams and mr justin he is the executive director of
00:08anglic organization from the united states so the floor is yours mr just uh justin
00:15thank you dr wasan and welcome everyone my name is justin williams and i am the executive director
00:21of tangelic and today i want to talk about something i believe is one of the most underutilized
00:26tools and development and that's ownership not access that participation but real ownership
00:34i'll share the story of how we're building a rural ghana and what it means for social
00:39entrepreneurship and green finance
00:44we've all seen it there have been billions spent infrastructure building programs launched
00:50then all of a sudden the funding stops and the community is left no better off sometimes even
00:55worse so i ask why does this keep happening and i believe the answer lies in one word ownership
01:03or rather the lack of it
01:08now on this slide we see the old model this is this is the default model in development
01:15external capital comes in something gets built and then the funders leave
01:21now the attention is definitely good but the outcome is often fragile because the community was positioned
01:27as a recipient not the owner when the project ends the knowledge the governance
01:33and revenue model disappear with it this model creates dependence
01:41now with the new model we have something different imagine a different sequence capital is invested
01:48to build local ownership from day local ownership i should say from day one the community is empowered
01:55with skills governance and enterprise tools then it owns the system not just uses it and because it
02:03owns it it can reinvest the returns this model creates resilience it shifts us from aid to enterprise
02:13and from projects to lasting institutions
02:21ownership framework at tangelic what we've learned is that ownership requires four interconnected pillars
02:29we know that infrastructure alone fails and governance without enterprise creates committees with no revenue
02:37additionally enterprise without finance cannot scale and lastly finance without the other three
02:44often creates debt or dependency when all four work together infrastructure governance enterprise and finance
02:53communities build institutions that last now that is real resilience
03:02in rural ghana women and girls walk hours every day for firewood the smoke damages their health and the forest
03:10disappear
03:11now this is usually framed as an environmental crisis but is also an economic one these challenges
03:18represent real market demand the communities living with them can't be the builders and owners of the solutions
03:24but these are markets that must build ethically this is where climate action and social entrepreneurship meet
03:36i personally know firsthand the good ideas exist and real demand exists what often is missing is the right kind
03:44of capital social enterprise and community-led initiatives in the global south are not starving for solutions
03:51they are starving for patient blended risk tolerant capital that understands last mile realities
03:58and is structured for ownership not extraction
04:04looking at this slide here this is how we think about moving capital from grants to sustainable community ownership
04:11it starts the foundation it starts with the foundation grants that provide the model
04:17capital capital then we move on to catalytic capital that absorbs the first losses concessional finance
04:25guarantees and helps scale lastly commercial capital can eventually participate because risk has been reduced
04:33at the bottom sits community revenue and reinvestment the ultimate sign of ownership this has helped this is
04:41the finance that actually works at the last mile
04:49now this is not a theory in three communities in ghana in the upper rest region natura banu
04:56capadiga and saru we are implementing this model right now in over 300 households
05:01we've provided solar home systems and clean cook stoves chosen by the communities which is a clear path to
05:07carbon revenue and local partnership with green for change ghana and as as you can see social opera
05:14social entrepreneurship and green fat finance were designed for ownership from the start
05:23what i've talked about is non-negotiable principle behind everything we do
05:27development happens with communities not to them when communities are treated as co-designers and co-owners
05:33instead of passive recipients the solutions are better and they last the principle should sit at the
05:40corner of social entrepreneurship and climate finance
05:47unfortunately women often carry the heaviest burden of energy poverty they also hold the greatest power to
05:53transform it in our model women are centered in enterprise governance and revenue sharing
05:59not as beneficiaries to be protected but as builders when women own part of the system the entire community
06:06becomes more resilient this is both value driven and strategically smart
06:15access vote access versus ownership access creates opportunity it opens doors but access alone keeps
06:22communities in permanent state of receiving ownership creates prosperity and when communities
06:28own the assets that's the enterprise and the revenue they move from being recipients of opportunity
06:35to creators of their own future this is the shift our work should be designed to enable from project
06:44to enterprise see we are trained to think in project cycles three years five years then exit but real
06:52development and real returns come from building enterprises and institutions that can survive and grow beyond
06:58any single funding cycle projects have timelines enterprises have futures the goal should be to build
07:07institutions that can stand on their own and compound value over time
07:16i'll leave you with this question just something to ponder what if ownership is the world's most underutilized
07:24development resource i'd like to say thank you and i hope this framework gives you something useful
07:31to think about in your own work if you're doing work similar challenges in social entrepreneurship
07:37or green finance i'd be happy to connect thank you thank you so much mr jeston again interesting presentation
07:46conversation with a lot of like good experiences from the ground
07:52you
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