INTRODUCTION

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Overview

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Ensemble UK is a registered charity that aims to establish a sustainable model for economic and social progress in the Eastern Congo, facilitating loans, grants and practical support to social businesses in the region. DRC is one of the poorest countries on earth, and the challenging environment has resulted in far lower levels of international support in building the economy and strengthening people’s resolve for a peaceful future than in many other developing countries. We have three years of experience of providing hugely impactful support to businesses in DRC, and set up Ensemble UK this year to raise additional funds for our work. We are now starting to build a small team to support this effort.  Within this, we are seeking a Finance and Operations Manager, a new role which provides a fantastic opportunity for someone with excellent finance experience to make a real difference in the world.

Background to Ensemble’s work

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Ensemble UK is a registered charity that aims to establish a sustainable model for economic and social progress in the Eastern Congo, which is a poor and conflict-affected region of strategic importance in East Africa.

Ensemble UK does this by

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• building awareness of the issues affecting the region

• raising money to provide grants and low-interest loans that enable social entrepreneurs in the region to generate wealth and distribute products and services that improve well-being

• raising money to support the operational overheads of the organisation

• co-ordinating offers of practical support in business, design and technology

Ensemble UK has established a long-term partnership with Ensemble DRC, which is registered as a cooperative in Bukavu, South Kivu. Essentially Ensemble DRC acts as an incubator using its extensive local knowledge to ensure the grants, loans and offers of practical support from Ensemble UK are effectively placed, monitored and evaluated. The intended outcomes are to reduce poverty, improve well-being and strengthen resistance to conflict in the communities of North and South Kivu.

The development of social businesses has been investigated, evaluated and adopted in other fragile and conflict-affected regions as evidenced by the work of the World Bank, the International Labour Office, the Committee for Enterprise Development and many other organisations including Acumen and the Skoll Foundation. The United Nations Development Program says that ‘UNDP’s work and experience in this area argues that post-conflict recovery strategy and policy should be anchored in the local engines of economic recovery’.

Three years of work has already been done by Ensemble DRC to understand and respond to the needs of people in the Eastern Congo. The learning is that communities emerging from conflict need one or two years to become sufficiently stable at which point entrepreneurs start up SME businesses, many of which are committed to delivering social as well as economic benefits.

However, in practice there are very few SME businesses in the region, in part because there is little understanding of how to establish and scale a business and how to use management tools and technology. Money is also a constraint. The banks charge 26% interest on loans, require significant collateral and usually demand that repayments begin immediately, all of which are prohibitive. Severe and sometimes random taxation adds to the problems and success is often met by excessive demands from the authorities and even family members.

Ensemble DRC was set up to help social entrepreneurs emerge and develop and to date it has supported twenty social businesses, most of which fall into one of three categories – agricultural products such as coffee, utilities such as solar energy, and fabricated products such as soap.

In total, approximately 500,000 people have so far benefited in terms of being able to meet basic needs in nourishment, shelter and safety, or improving their well-being in terms of health, education or social belonging. With the support of Ensemble UK, the target is to make a transformative impact on 2 million people in the years 2017 - 2021.

Challenges

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DRC has a long history of poor governance and corruption that continues to discourage support from developed countries to the point where some governments and corporate companies black list DRC and will not provide support. War broke out in 1995 and continued until 2002 during which more than 3 million people died. Insecurity continues in Eastern Congo where around seventy military groups operate together with gangs of robbers who prey upon local people at night.

There are many NGOs operating in the region. However their focus is on solving emergencies and acute problems and few if any NGOs are helping people to build the economy and strengthen people’s resolve for a peaceful future. The electricity, water and transport infrastructure is poor even in the cities, and at least one third of the population have no education whatsoever. Healthcare is beyond the means of most people and malnutrition is widespread. All of these issues are currently exacerbated by political instability, which has depressed the economy, encouraged armed groups to become more active and further discouraged support from developed countries.

The fundraising task for Ensemble UK will be difficult even in times of world-wide stability and more so given political upheaval in Europe and the US and famines elsewhere in Africa. The good news is that in the face of a long list of challenges, there are people in Eastern Congo with the capacity and motivation to make a difference by starting and building businesses of value to the community as well as themselves. There are also entrepreneurs and corporate companies in Europe and the US with the adventurous drive needed to support and collaborate with people in Eastern Congo.

Structure of Ensemble UK

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The strategic direction and management of Ensemble UK is provided by a Board of Trustees who include Mike Beeston, Nigel Langstaff and Harriet Hall. Nigel and Harriet will oversee the finances and the legal compliance respectively and will from time to time call upon professional services. Mike Beeston is the only trustee who works day to day for Ensemble UK. He has the responsibility of representing the needs of Ensemble DRC to the Board of Trustees and he also manages the day to day running of the organisation.

The relationship between Ensemble UK and Ensemble DRC is defined in a framework agreement, which acknowledges that as a registered charity, Ensemble UK needs to exercise appropriate governance and oversight of DRC as well as UK operations. The UK team therefore needs highly effective relationships with the team in DRC, and to understand activities and performance there in detail.

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