1.

Services are failing the poor

- SD (Sustainable Development)
- The article discusses how companies struggle to find new markets and value
propositions, especially when it comes to meeting the basic needs of poor people. The
World Bank has found that poor people in non-industrialized countries often can't access
or afford services to satisfy their basic needs. The article emphasizes the importance of
sustainable development, which means development that meets the needs of the
present without harming the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The
United Nations has set goals for sustainable development, including goals related to
human rights, health, education, and the environment. The article suggests that
companies have a responsibility to help achieve these goals by being socially
responsible. However, the article acknowledges that despite efforts to promote
sustainable development, many people in the world are still struggling and their situation
has not improved.

2. A new phenomenon: Social Entrepreneurship (SE)

- The article discusses a new trend called social entrepreneurship (SE) that is emerging
around the world. SE initiatives are finding ways to provide services to the poor and are
defying obstacles that have prevented traditional businesses from doing so. SE employs
innovative approaches and combines different types of resources to create value in new
ways.

Three examples of SE initiatives to illustrate the potential of the field:

2.1. Case 1: The Institute for OneWorld Health (USA)
- Victoria Hale founded OneWorld Health to overcome economic and logistical barriers
that prevent pharmaceutical companies from developing drugs for Third World countries.
OneWorld Health is the first non-profit pharmaceutical company in the US that aims to
deliver medicines to those in need in developing countries. They challenge traditional
profitability thinking and have established a new set of partnerships aimed at creating
value for everyone involved. They receive funding from philanthropic organizations and
governments, and being a non-profit allows them to access capital that business
entrepreneurs usually cannot. OneWorld Health strives to utilize and integrate the
scientific and manufacturing capacity of the developing world to deliver affordable,
effective, and appropriate new medicines where they are most needed.

2.2. Case 2: Sekem (Egypt)

- Sekem is a company in Egypt that was founded by Ibrahim Abouleish in 1977. It started
on a piece of desert land and has grown to become a company that creates economic,
social, and cultural value while making a significant impact on Egyptian society. The
profits from Sekem's businesses are used to fund schools, an adult education center, a
medical center, and a planned university. These institutions cater to basic human needs
and help people to escape poverty and gain control over their lives. Sekem is also
known for pioneering biodynamic agriculture in Egypt and deploying a new system of
plant protection for cotton that led to a ban on crop dusting throughout Egypt. By 2000,
 pesticide use in Egyptian cotton fields had fallen by more than 90%. In 2003, Ibrahim
Abouleish received the Right Livelihood Award in recognition of his achievements in
integrating commercial success with social and cultural development. Sekem is seen as
a "blueprint for the healthy corporation of the 21st century" and is an example of a
successful social entrepreneurship model.

2.3. Case 3: Grameen Bank (Bangladesh)

- Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank to provide credit to poor people in rural
Bangladesh who could not obtain loans from established banks. The bank operates
1191 branches and serves over 3 million poor people in 43,459 villages in Bangladesh. It
grants unsecured loans to the poorest villagers, with priority given to designing the loan
system to ensure timely repayment. The bank makes efforts to lend primarily to women,
who are both economically and socially disadvantaged. To qualify for a loan, a villager
must show that her family assets are below a certain threshold, and she must join a five-
member group and a forty-member center and attend a weekly meeting. She shares
responsibility for the loans granted to the other members of her group. It is the group, not
the bank, that initially evaluates loan requests, and defaulters would spoil things for
everybody, so group members must choose their partners wisely. Grameen Bank has
been profitable since its inception, and its success has inspired a global micro-credit
movement that has spread to 65 developing countries, reaching 17 million borrowers.

3. What does it all mean?

- The examples of entrepreneurial initiatives worldwide have challenged the conventional
thinking about what is possible and have shown new paths and solutions to social and
environmental problems. Social entrepreneurship (SE) primarily focuses on a social
mission, creating new models to provide products and services to address basic human
needs that remain unmet by current economic or social institutions. SE recognizes and
acts upon opportunities to improve systems, create solutions, and invent new
approaches. While traditional entrepreneurship creates economic value, social value
creation is the primary objective of SE, and economic value creation is often a by-
product that enables sustainability and self-sufficiency. SE has been studied primarily in
the US, but many initiatives operate in developing countries where traditional
entrepreneurship is challenging due to limited resources and infrastructure. Therefore,
SE creates novel business models, organizational structures, and strategies to broker
between limited and disparate resources to create social value. Exceptionally skilled
individuals must muster and mobilize resources, including human, financial, and political
resources, for SE initiatives to thrive.

4. Social entrepreneurship in support of sustainable development goals

- The passage highlights the complexity of social entrepreneurship and how it can differ
from traditional or business entrepreneurship. The concept of social needs underlying
sustainable development goals is introduced as a way to create a common objective for
social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship is defined as the creation of new
models for the provision of products and services that cater directly to social needs.
 Examples of social entrepreneurship initiatives are provided, including the Institute of
OneWorldHealth, Grameen Bank, and BRAC. The passage also mentions the need for
social entrepreneurship to reach a critical mass of initiatives around the globe, and the
challenge of defining the characteristics of social entrepreneurs. Finally, the passage
notes that social entrepreneurship can support a wide range of motivations, including the
opportunity to make financial profit.

5. Social entrepreneurship: New partners for corporations and institutions?

- Social entrepreneurship, seen as a field of experimentation and innovation, has the
potential to contribute new insights to the discipline of entrepreneurship, and also to the
wider social sector. The interfaces between SE, CSR efforts, and public institutions offer
great potential for discovering new forms of collaborative value creation in support of
sustainable development.

5.1. Public institutions and social entrepreneurship

- The passage describes how social entrepreneurship (SE) can collaborate with
international organizations, NGOs, and development institutions to promote sustainable
development (SD) goals. Specifically, it mentions the World Bank's Development
Marketplace program, which provides seed funding to social entrepreneurs with poverty-
fighting ideas, and other organizations like Ashoka and the Schwab Foundation, which
also provide support to SE efforts. The passage also notes that SE efforts often rely on
funding from foundations, at least initially, until their "customers" can contribute to the
value created. More research is needed to better understand how the public sector can
collaborate with and support SE efforts to achieve SD goals.

5.2. An exciting opportunity for enlightened corporate social responsibility

- The passage discusses the potential benefits of linking social entrepreneurship (SE) and
corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, particularly in the context of achieving the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in less developed countries. The author argues
that SE, with its focus on identifying and addressing social needs, can be an effective
partner for CSR projects seeking to create social value. By partnering with local
entrepreneurs, corporations can identify specific needs and develop targeted projects
that match their resources and capabilities. The author suggests that such partnerships
could use CSR budgets to invest in developing new markets by turning people with basic
needs into customers and building trust to acquire an operations license. Additionally,
the author argues that this type of collaboration could help entrepreneurs scale their
efforts by allowing them to become serial social entrepreneurs, while companies can
take ownership of projects once they reach a certain size. Overall, the author sees SE
as a promising way for corporations to learn and create new collaborative efforts that
benefit both the corporations' economic interests and social value for those who need it
most.