Istituto Per Sviluppo Professionale dei Lavorati (ISFOL) or The Equal National Support Structure in Italy has painted a good picture of the contribution of the social economy in Europe in their 2006 paper entitled How Can Social Economy Contribute to the Local Development? The Paper documents various proceedings of Equal Development Partnership (EDP) countries workshops that brought practitioners from Italy, Poland, Finland, Sweden, UK GB, Germany and Belgium.
Social entrepreneurship is acknowledged in Europe as a priority in the national employment strategies and the promotion of sustainable growth. It is also acknowledged for innovation on issues of the social economy and linkages with local processes and policies. There are common problems calling for the development of the social economy in all the EDP countries include, improving the availability of services to the sections of the communities not accessing them easily, raising the potential of employment and job creation, encouraging policies on integration strategies, the development of areas affected by social, territorial or economic setbacks and which could benefit from new professional profiles and services.
The third sector (social entrepreneurship endeavours are also referred to as the third sector. Other players in the economy include the Government and the corporate sectors) organizations in Europe have a deep knowledge of the local needs in their areas of their operations and have thus contributed to innovations and modernization of the social welfare systems. This sector has become extremely pertinent in the integration of the disadvantaged people within the mainstream, and encouraging new models of social responsibility. Apart from service provision, local development, they also advocate for the disadvantaged populations and encourage new models of social responsibility.
The third sector also experiences great obstacles as follow:
Finance: The third sector organizations find it difficulty to access financial resources due to their nature of operation and the demand for collateral and concrete guarantees from the financial resource providers. This constrains their growth.
Markets: The main consumer of the SE’s among the EDP countries is the public sector. The demand of the public sector is politically rooted and its evolution is difficult to predict.
Human Resource: Conventional managers do not possess all the abilities required by a social enterprise. An inappropriate Human Resource may dampen the quality of the services provided.
Legislative environment: Lack of recognition of the contributions of the third sector in building of the overall economy. Proper legislative environment would provide a good environment that allows for innovations and hence the thriving of the sector.
So far from the third sector in Europe we could derive many lessons; some of them being:
Finance, demand, skills and the legal environment are partially the external obstacles to social enterprises. These sectors are seen as both political and organizational obstacles. The social enterprises could only solve problems associated with these obstacles by carrying out their services and solving the obstacles as they arise.
There is a great challenge on “becoming entrepreneurial but remaining social,” a caveat needs to be observed: social enterprises must never lose their distinguishing feature and that is their social nature. Social enterprises may utilise social accounting and auditing methods to measure and report their quality and impact.
The main aim of the social economy is to change people’s minds and to transfer values. Knowing why people are in a particular state is important than know how. Technical skills are important but they have to be complimented with trust, mutual respect, confidence and passion.
Failure is the starting point for the third sector. Failing to solve the needs of the local people, or discrimination of a particular group is the cause for the emergence of the social enterprise. Demand is expressed by the unsatisfied community. Designing new ways of supplying services is the innovative part.
The public authorities should ensure that their procurement practice includes social objectives (i.e. employment of disadvantaged people) which should be included as selection criteria and not as award criteria.
In concluding, the experiences shared in these workshops were shared in the light of social cooperatives in Italy, social foundations in Poland, Social enterprises in Sweden, development partnerships in Germany and social organizations in UK GB. These give practical examples of social enterprises that have done tremendous work to respond to the community needs such as social inclusion of the disadvantaged people, job creation and the development of areas affected by a set of setbacks.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Friday, September 28, 2007
Social Entrepreneurship as a Survival Strategy for NPO's
Several Non Profit Organizations (NPO's) are rising up in Kenya day in day out. They are in the form of organizations that would like to offer a solution to a particular problem facing the society. A common problem is that most organizations find themselves in difficulties after sometimes because of various factors and finacial resources being part of them.
When organizations start they do so with the hope that they will find secret resources stashed in some place. However after starting the reality becomes totally different; they find that they have to look for innovative ways to provide resources that will ensure that they are able to sustain their missions. In most cases when after a year you happen to ask these organisations how they are surviving, the common answer your are bound to receive especially in the Kenyan context is "by the Grace of God." Now, for our case it is important to know how these organizations survive... It will help us to understand in very practical ways what social entrepreneurship is in our own societies today. In 2006 during the World Social Forum a booklet of Street Children Activities and Projects was launched and in it there was a profile of 124 Street Children initiatives in Nairobi. One important observation was that most organization about 50% and over were operating with a budget of Kshs. 500,000 to 1,000,000. When asked about their sources of funds, it was found that over 60% of the 124 homes were self financing. How were they able to do this? This is not only peculiar to street children projects but many projects in Kenya today.
Secondly there were many projects that could not survive. Borrowing a leaf from the projects that were able to survive we ask ourselves were there other factors other than the ability to generate finances that made some of these projects not to be able to survive? And our answer was yes. Some projects failed as a result of disagreements, others as a result of weak leadership,
others as a result of unclear vision and others as a result of lack of transparency and lack of honesty. The list is endless. Do all these have any relevance for the success of a social entreprise! Of course they do! A social entreprise requires as much discipline as the corporates do!
We welcome ideas on failures and successes of projects and any other ideas which do support or challenges our proposal above which suggests that "Social Entrepreneurship could be a Survival Strategy for NPO's in Kenya or elsewhere!
When organizations start they do so with the hope that they will find secret resources stashed in some place. However after starting the reality becomes totally different; they find that they have to look for innovative ways to provide resources that will ensure that they are able to sustain their missions. In most cases when after a year you happen to ask these organisations how they are surviving, the common answer your are bound to receive especially in the Kenyan context is "by the Grace of God." Now, for our case it is important to know how these organizations survive... It will help us to understand in very practical ways what social entrepreneurship is in our own societies today. In 2006 during the World Social Forum a booklet of Street Children Activities and Projects was launched and in it there was a profile of 124 Street Children initiatives in Nairobi. One important observation was that most organization about 50% and over were operating with a budget of Kshs. 500,000 to 1,000,000. When asked about their sources of funds, it was found that over 60% of the 124 homes were self financing. How were they able to do this? This is not only peculiar to street children projects but many projects in Kenya today.
Secondly there were many projects that could not survive. Borrowing a leaf from the projects that were able to survive we ask ourselves were there other factors other than the ability to generate finances that made some of these projects not to be able to survive? And our answer was yes. Some projects failed as a result of disagreements, others as a result of weak leadership,
others as a result of unclear vision and others as a result of lack of transparency and lack of honesty. The list is endless. Do all these have any relevance for the success of a social entreprise! Of course they do! A social entreprise requires as much discipline as the corporates do!
We welcome ideas on failures and successes of projects and any other ideas which do support or challenges our proposal above which suggests that "Social Entrepreneurship could be a Survival Strategy for NPO's in Kenya or elsewhere!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
The Enterprise of Employment and Wealth Creation
Statistics have placed the poverty incidence at 56% in Kenya. This figure has remained constant over a period of 5 years. These statistics could simply be translated to mean that people have little or no income at their disposal and hence may not be in a position to purchase what they need or even be able to access needful services.
Kenya is a diverse country and each region has different economic activity taking place. The entire North of Kenya is generally considered to be semi arid region and the people of these places generally engage in pastoralism as their main economic activity. The challenges in the Northern Region include water, animal rustling, severe dry spells amongst others. These challenges in many cases have contributed to severe negative repercussions on the economic livelihood.
The Western Kenya is made up of the Nyanza and Western Province regions. These regions are mainly agricultural areas. The Nyanza Province is endowed with the Lake Victoria and hence has booming fishing activities save for the recent hyacinth problem. Some areas of Nyanza experience floods time and again. Whenever these happen people’s activities are affected negatively. In Nyanza there are also tea plantations.
The Coast is famous for its touristic attractions. The natural beaches, coral reefs and the vast Indian Ocean are quite a resource. This extends from Mombasa to Lamu and Malindi. As one proceeds further North there is Garsen and Tana River areas. These areas are also prone to floods amongst other problems.
The Central Kenya is made up of mainly agricultural activities. It is believed that this region has a big contribution to Kenya’s economy. The Rift Valley Region on the other hand is believed to be the place that Feeds Kenya i.e. the Granary of Kenya.
The Government in a bid to reduce poverty aims at creating 100,000 jobs per year. There are many challenges entailed in job creation and hence ultimately in trying to reduce the poverty incidence in Kenya. Looking at the diversities prevalent in each Kenyan region it becomes evident that each region has strengths which can be reinforced and weaknesses that need addressing in order to ensure that entrepreneurship finds fertile ground to grow in all these regions. The government strategy for job creation therefore should aim at the entire Kenya. Looking at the possibilities of providing people with employment in their own localities.
The corporate sector in Kenya is only able to absorb less than 10% of the employable population in Kenya. This leaves out so much of the employable finding themselves jobless. Despite the gravity of this situation, something positive has emerged and that is people have started developing simple efforts and technologies to occupy themselves constructively and secondly to provide them with a means of livelihood. It is important that these small initiatives are assisted to survive if we are to create a sustainable economy and to create jobs and ultimately wealth.
The biggest challenge faced by Kenya today is to ensure that the entire economy is geared towards wealth creation. How can a subsistence economy create any wealth at all? How can it generate an aggregation of surpluses when all that is generated today is all consumed and in essence cannot be in a position to provide for all the needs in the economy? Wealth creation as has been explored above is an accumulation of an economy’s savings over a period of time. Wealth can be seen in the form of capital investment, improved infrastructure, improved access to social amenities etc. Linking this aspect of wealth creation to community based endervours means that much has to be done. It is a fact that the community based made by the poor are not able to transcend community boundaries and ultimately enter into the economic and the political arena. This is also experienced in Kenya where self help groups started to address a specific community need hardly survive a year. How possible would it be to create strategies that would make these initiatives survive and ultimately contribute to this problem of wealth creation for the nation? The fact is that these initiatives are barely able to meet the subsistence needs of their members and therefore find it difficult to survive in the long run. A pure situation on the ground is that these initiatives accumulate deficits over a very long period of time. This situation depletes their working capital and ultimately the ability to accumulate wealth. Initiatives that are able to survive the capital depletion problem, may find themselves in heavy reliance to injected resources from a particular donor. These types of resources do not permit for wealth creation as they encourage 100% amortization during a particular financial period. The resources may also not be invested in any other place when idle.
It is a fact that the needs in Kenya are quite varied and there is a big need for entrepreneurs who look beyond profit appropriation to themselves but who see their role as providing for solutions for the socio economic plight facing our communities. These are the types of entrepreneurs who will concentrate on providing social benefits on one hand and ensure that the initiatives they have built survive on the other. So far, there are already many institutes surviving in this way in Kenya today. KARDS is one of them, many street children homes in Kenya (Undugu, Koinonia, KipKeino etc) and Projects addressing HIV/AIDS (Hands of love, Zindua Africa etc) also survive through their own internally generated resources amongst many. These initiatives need to be encouraged in various ways. A collaboration between the government, the corporate sector and the civil society will be important to provide a conducive atmosphere for the survival of these initiatives. It is important to note that when the public is empowered through job creation; the purchasing power improves, more wealth is created in the economy, through enhanced ability to save
Kenya is a diverse country and each region has different economic activity taking place. The entire North of Kenya is generally considered to be semi arid region and the people of these places generally engage in pastoralism as their main economic activity. The challenges in the Northern Region include water, animal rustling, severe dry spells amongst others. These challenges in many cases have contributed to severe negative repercussions on the economic livelihood.
The Western Kenya is made up of the Nyanza and Western Province regions. These regions are mainly agricultural areas. The Nyanza Province is endowed with the Lake Victoria and hence has booming fishing activities save for the recent hyacinth problem. Some areas of Nyanza experience floods time and again. Whenever these happen people’s activities are affected negatively. In Nyanza there are also tea plantations.
The Coast is famous for its touristic attractions. The natural beaches, coral reefs and the vast Indian Ocean are quite a resource. This extends from Mombasa to Lamu and Malindi. As one proceeds further North there is Garsen and Tana River areas. These areas are also prone to floods amongst other problems.
The Central Kenya is made up of mainly agricultural activities. It is believed that this region has a big contribution to Kenya’s economy. The Rift Valley Region on the other hand is believed to be the place that Feeds Kenya i.e. the Granary of Kenya.
The Government in a bid to reduce poverty aims at creating 100,000 jobs per year. There are many challenges entailed in job creation and hence ultimately in trying to reduce the poverty incidence in Kenya. Looking at the diversities prevalent in each Kenyan region it becomes evident that each region has strengths which can be reinforced and weaknesses that need addressing in order to ensure that entrepreneurship finds fertile ground to grow in all these regions. The government strategy for job creation therefore should aim at the entire Kenya. Looking at the possibilities of providing people with employment in their own localities.
The corporate sector in Kenya is only able to absorb less than 10% of the employable population in Kenya. This leaves out so much of the employable finding themselves jobless. Despite the gravity of this situation, something positive has emerged and that is people have started developing simple efforts and technologies to occupy themselves constructively and secondly to provide them with a means of livelihood. It is important that these small initiatives are assisted to survive if we are to create a sustainable economy and to create jobs and ultimately wealth.
The biggest challenge faced by Kenya today is to ensure that the entire economy is geared towards wealth creation. How can a subsistence economy create any wealth at all? How can it generate an aggregation of surpluses when all that is generated today is all consumed and in essence cannot be in a position to provide for all the needs in the economy? Wealth creation as has been explored above is an accumulation of an economy’s savings over a period of time. Wealth can be seen in the form of capital investment, improved infrastructure, improved access to social amenities etc. Linking this aspect of wealth creation to community based endervours means that much has to be done. It is a fact that the community based made by the poor are not able to transcend community boundaries and ultimately enter into the economic and the political arena. This is also experienced in Kenya where self help groups started to address a specific community need hardly survive a year. How possible would it be to create strategies that would make these initiatives survive and ultimately contribute to this problem of wealth creation for the nation? The fact is that these initiatives are barely able to meet the subsistence needs of their members and therefore find it difficult to survive in the long run. A pure situation on the ground is that these initiatives accumulate deficits over a very long period of time. This situation depletes their working capital and ultimately the ability to accumulate wealth. Initiatives that are able to survive the capital depletion problem, may find themselves in heavy reliance to injected resources from a particular donor. These types of resources do not permit for wealth creation as they encourage 100% amortization during a particular financial period. The resources may also not be invested in any other place when idle.
It is a fact that the needs in Kenya are quite varied and there is a big need for entrepreneurs who look beyond profit appropriation to themselves but who see their role as providing for solutions for the socio economic plight facing our communities. These are the types of entrepreneurs who will concentrate on providing social benefits on one hand and ensure that the initiatives they have built survive on the other. So far, there are already many institutes surviving in this way in Kenya today. KARDS is one of them, many street children homes in Kenya (Undugu, Koinonia, KipKeino etc) and Projects addressing HIV/AIDS (Hands of love, Zindua Africa etc) also survive through their own internally generated resources amongst many. These initiatives need to be encouraged in various ways. A collaboration between the government, the corporate sector and the civil society will be important to provide a conducive atmosphere for the survival of these initiatives. It is important to note that when the public is empowered through job creation; the purchasing power improves, more wealth is created in the economy, through enhanced ability to save
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The Face of Poverty
Poverty makes you humble and and actually demeans you!!! Makes you feel that you are lesser than other human beings!!
Poverty condems you to incredible suffering more than what the best writers on poverty can ever imagine and express. Poverty has made the poor lose their faces and made everybody else think that they are better than the poor. Of course, others could be better than the poor because they are leaving a better life, have better access to schools, medication, employment, better governance and better working systems.
Poverty is more than the ugly pictures of starvation, disease outbreaks and the hopelessness that is in our communities. It is a death that the poor experience when they are still alive. It is a feeling that you have no control over your own life and your own self.
And that is why we must devise strategies to resurrect the poor and give them some reason to hope, to rise a new each day and to begin feeling that they can make important decisions about themselves!!
As can be seen from the feelings expressed above, an introduction of social entrepreneurship must address the issue of the death of the poor. It must give them a voice and must enable them to at last develop the ability to be self confident. In essence be of service, advocate for and accompanying the poor.
Poverty condems you to incredible suffering more than what the best writers on poverty can ever imagine and express. Poverty has made the poor lose their faces and made everybody else think that they are better than the poor. Of course, others could be better than the poor because they are leaving a better life, have better access to schools, medication, employment, better governance and better working systems.
Poverty is more than the ugly pictures of starvation, disease outbreaks and the hopelessness that is in our communities. It is a death that the poor experience when they are still alive. It is a feeling that you have no control over your own life and your own self.
And that is why we must devise strategies to resurrect the poor and give them some reason to hope, to rise a new each day and to begin feeling that they can make important decisions about themselves!!
As can be seen from the feelings expressed above, an introduction of social entrepreneurship must address the issue of the death of the poor. It must give them a voice and must enable them to at last develop the ability to be self confident. In essence be of service, advocate for and accompanying the poor.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Community Structures behind Social Entrepreneurship In Africa
Social entrepreneurship seems to be a completely new concept in Africa. This is abit strange as our very mode of life revolves around the community. Walking in both the rural and urban Kenya today, communities are deeply organized around a particular social problem. These communities take the form of religious entities, schools, families etc. All are talking of a particular project in the name of a CBO, Self help etc. Somehow a majority of the people are involved in one project or another......... Several questions therefore arise as a result:
1. It so appears that social entrepreneurship is a practice that is in the communities. How can it be enhanced?
2. So far social entrepreneurship is a sector that provides services not satisfied neither by the public nor the corporate sector. Is this sector relevant in Kenya and possibly Africa today?
3. What structures are already present in our communities that can be enhanced to boost social entrepreneurship?
4. Arguements of quasi markets arise when discussing Social entreprise! Could this really apply when communities are addressing gaps neither satisfied by the government nor the corporate sector?
5. How can social entrepreneurship be modelled within the Afican community structures with a view to use it as a contributory strategy to poverty eradication?
1. It so appears that social entrepreneurship is a practice that is in the communities. How can it be enhanced?
2. So far social entrepreneurship is a sector that provides services not satisfied neither by the public nor the corporate sector. Is this sector relevant in Kenya and possibly Africa today?
3. What structures are already present in our communities that can be enhanced to boost social entrepreneurship?
4. Arguements of quasi markets arise when discussing Social entreprise! Could this really apply when communities are addressing gaps neither satisfied by the government nor the corporate sector?
5. How can social entrepreneurship be modelled within the Afican community structures with a view to use it as a contributory strategy to poverty eradication?
Monday, September 24, 2007
Social Entrepreneurship in Africa
Social entrepreneurship is a way in which people carry out businesses in order to maximize their impact to the society. As a result they are able to solve a particular social concern while at the same time meet the objective of organizational survival or sustainability.
In Africa with enormous social concerns, and the fact that when you talk of social exclusion, these as a concept may easily be overlooked. Governments are struggling and citizens too are struggling. Yet, within this very esence of struggle much is being achieved. People have organized themselves around social concerns to solve a particular problem, at the same time they work to create means and ways to ensure that their efforts could survive so as to be of service in another day. Dont we think that with this type of efforts, Africa could in essence be a really good ground for social entrepreneurship!
An Africa that uses its problems and makes them catalysts for entrepreneurship in the long run! Is there anyone interested in this issue out here. Lets hear your critiques and comments
www.kardsafrica.com
In Africa with enormous social concerns, and the fact that when you talk of social exclusion, these as a concept may easily be overlooked. Governments are struggling and citizens too are struggling. Yet, within this very esence of struggle much is being achieved. People have organized themselves around social concerns to solve a particular problem, at the same time they work to create means and ways to ensure that their efforts could survive so as to be of service in another day. Dont we think that with this type of efforts, Africa could in essence be a really good ground for social entrepreneurship!
An Africa that uses its problems and makes them catalysts for entrepreneurship in the long run! Is there anyone interested in this issue out here. Lets hear your critiques and comments
www.kardsafrica.com
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