Proforest shares insights from Schwab Foundation Summit in South Korea

Proforest’ Abraham Baffoe, Global and Africa Director recently participated in the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship Summit held in Soeul, South Korea, an influential global gathering that brings together high-impact social entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders from across sectors to advance systemic solutions to inequality and exclusion.

Hosted in partnership with the World Economic Forum, the Summit served as a platform for sharing innovations, building cross-sector partnerships, and engaging with Korea’s dynamic social entrepreneurship ecosystem. It also facilitated learning and collaboration among communities of changemakers, including Schwab awardees, the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship, and the next generation of social innovators.

The participants for the Summit visited the Centre for Social Value Enhancement Studies (CSES), where discussions focused on addressing a key challenge faced by many social enterprises _securing sustainable financing for social impact work. The CSES shared how it supports social enterprises by measuring and monetising social performance, helping translate social outcomes into tangible value, especially when public or private sectors are unable or unwilling to pay for social outcomes that don’t directly align with their mandates or commercial interests.

Reflecting on the experience, Abraham Baffoe shared:

The Schwab Summit in Korea gave me inspiration for challenges such as sustaining changing governments’ interest and commitment that we face with the Africa Sustainable Commodities Initiative,  Abraham said. He added, one of my main takeaways from CSES was how they measure and monetise social performance, creating incentives for the private sector to support social progress even when the value isn’t solely commercial. This kind of innovation is critical for the future of social enterprises globally.

The summit also offered key lessons for Proforest’ work, particularly the Africa Sustainable Commodities Initiative (ASCI), a multi-stakeholder platform focused on responsible sourcing and production in commodity landscapes across Africa.

Abraham noted it is important that social innovators align their work with relevant government policies to sustain long-term public commitment. For initiatives like ASCI, early resourcing and formal structures are essential to avoid burnout among volunteers and to ensure continuity. Moreover, collectives must be designed with long-term resourcing and scalability and focus on contributing to collective impact, rather than claiming attribution.

The Summit reinforced cross-sector collaboration, long-term commitment, and scalable innovation as essential in tackling global and regional challenges. Proforest plays a central role in convening and facilitating collaborations to bridge global corporate commitments with local realities through our deep industry insight and practical experience.