ASEF

I'm supposed to participate in this conference and present the Hong Kong paper, which I compiled jointly with Josephine Lee (of SJS), and with research support provided by the St James' Settlement Research Team.


EVENT: Asian Social Entrepreneurship Forum: Roots And Roadmaps
Dates: 19-20 February
Venue: Taipei, Taiwan
Organizers: Conference of Asian Foundations and Organizations (CAFO)

Thirty-five social entrepreneurs gathered at a conference entitled 『Roots and Roadmaps' in Taipei on 19-20 February 2005. The objectives of the gathering, organized by the Conference of Asian Foundations and Organizations (CAFO), were to discuss and contribute to the evolving social entrepreneurship framework developed by CAFO over the preceding three years; to increase appreciation of the roots, contexts and characteristics of social entrepreneurship in Asian societies; and to discuss the issues and challenges the movement faces in the region and how CAFO might serve as a platform to address them.

Social Entrepreneurship in Asia:
Origins and Roles

The session on indigenizing social entrepreneurship in Asian societies found the roots of social entrepreneurship in community cooperation on such things as house construction and transfer, agricultural production and the barter system, which were common in India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. In more recent times, self-help groups and cooperatives had grown up in response to the failure of post-colonial states to provide adequate level of goods and services. Development NGOs had also arisen, funded either by overseas development assistance or western donors more generally in the case of poorer countries (such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines) or by government and corporate donors in the case of more affluent countries (such as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore).

Social entrepreneurship evolved in both cases as NPOs were obliged to diversify their sources of funding following a general downturn in funding. Participants felt that social entrepreneurship had effectively become the art of developing and managing enterprises with multiple bottom lines and identified a number of potential roles for it in different areas of Asia:

* to address the financial sustainability of development programmes and institutions where sources of grant funding are drying up and create trends towards more market-based approaches among NPOs;

* to empower economically the poor/marginalized in underdeveloped/developing economies (India, Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia);

* to advocate for a more humane, responsive market economy (for example, fair trade, partnership with corporations to promote corporate citizenship while tapping their expertise and resources for social enterprise initiatives);

* to provide services for businesses to help them provide for a larger section of the population (as in the case of Taiwan);

* to integrate disadvantaged, vulnerable and marginalized sectors into the mainstream economy in developed market economies or affluent societies (Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan);

* to ensure a more humane shift to market economies in socialist countries (such as China and Vietnam).

This last point was felt to be of particular importance for future research projects.

The challenges of social entrepreneurship

The conference identified a number of major challenges through the experiences presented by individual social enterprises. Many of these were to do with managing the conflicts creating by running a business and at the same time providing a service (how, for instance, to measure non-financial bottom lines or to determine the cost-benefit ratio of a service or programme). There was also the question of mainstreaming: organizations engaged in fair trade begin with niche markets but, sooner or later, need to be able to compete in the open market. Another issue is scaling up, that is, enhancing the participation of marginalized sectors and the benefits of such enhanced participation in the market. Here again, the major underlying question was seen as being how to reconcile the commercial and the social elements of a social enterprise.

The relevance of social entrepreneurship in the aftermath of the tsunami

The fourth session described the work of Dompet Dhuafa (DD) (Indonesia) and the Thai Volunteer Service (TVS) in the relief and rehabilitation of tsunami victims. DD implements a community recovery programme called the Kampung (Village) Reform, which has economic, social development, education, health and infrastructural elements. TVS spearheaded the formation of the Taskforce for Southern Community and Ecological Recovery composed of over a hundred Thai NGOs that address the needs of women, children and local fisherfolk and questions of labour, religion and disability, among others.

The social entrepreneurship agenda for CAFO

Delegates proposed the following action plan for CAFO. In respect of tsunami relief and reconstruction, CAFO can be a platform for the exchange and sharing of ideas and experiences about rehabilitation and reconstruction work using social entrepreneurship models.

Social entrepreneurship is a key strategy for sustainable development. In order to further its promotion and development, CAFO can help organize and support future initiatives like the Roots and Roadmaps conference. Sectors to be lobbied are government, corporations, CSOs outside of CAFO, and the public. CAFO also has a capacity-building role, bringing organizations and resources together and helping build a body of knowledge.

Finally, CAFO should develop further overall strategies in social entrepreneurship based on the specific strategies in each country; conduct action research based on the challenges outlined above; develop further capacity-building tools; and set up a website and mailing list for the sharing of information.