Poverty Alleviation Through Social Entrepreneurship

                                                                                                

Poverty Alleviation  Through  Social Entrepreneurship

                                             

Social Entrepreneurship is gaining increasing  attention as a concept which challenges academic, bureaucratic and professional approaches to entrenched social problems. The notion of social entrepreneurship embraces the idea that business acumen can be applied to community causes in an empowering way such that there is a real transfer of economic power to significantly disadvantaged groups and individuals. Social entrepreneurship is the process of bringing about social change on a major scale. Social entrepreneurs function as the agents of change, questioning the status quo, grabbing the new yet overlooked opportunities, and changing the world for the better. Today, they are making up for the shortcomings of the bureaucracies and government. The idea of entrepreneurship places emphasis on the following; 

ð  Creative and innovative approach

ð  Application of business acumen to social goals

ð  Opportunities for combining for-profit and not-for-profit initiatives

ð  Improved economic prosperity for disadvantaged constituencies

ð  Individual capacities for problems solving

ð  Responsibilities as well as rights as encompassed by the notion of mutual responsibility.

“A hand up not a handout. It is neither top down nor bottom up. Rather, it is insider out”. Social entrepreneurship promotes notions of mutual obligation and individual responsibility, it is seen to have the potential to be aligned with the interests of conservative politics.  As well as gaining an understanding of current patterns of contribution from business, through a developmental approach the research aimed to explore the scope for business to embrace corporate social investment as a planned initiative  strategically directed towards the integration of economic and social goals, which would lead to well distributed gains in economic and social well-being. Economic empowerment means the creation of adequate and sustainable jobs for the unemployed, or, in the absence of jobs, and adequate social wage.

                 A  social  entrepreneurial concept of applying business acumen to service and enterprise development for social and economic empowerment is thus likely to challenge strongly held beliefs about effective business practice and about the delivery of social and community services.

Social Entrepreneur Role in social and Rural Development:

            Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solutions, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps. Social entrepreneurs often seem to be possessed by their ideas, committing their lives to changing the direction of their field. They are both visionaries and ultimate realists, concerned with the practical implementation of their vision above all else.

Social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss and improving systems, inventing new approaches, and creating solutions to change society for the better. Each social entrepreneur presents ideas that are user-friendly, understandable, ethical, and engage widespread support in order to maximize the number of rural people that will stand up, seize their idea, and implement with it. Every leading social entrepreneur is a mass recruiter of local changemakers a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything. A Social entrepreneur comes up with new solutions to social and rural problems and then implements them on a large scale.

            A social entrepreneur recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Unlike business entrepreneurs, they don’t measure performance in profit and returns, but assess success by the impact they have on society and often work through nonprofits and citizen groups.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that

ð  Nearly, 160 million women and men are officially counted as unemployed and another billion or more people are underemployed or working poor. Moreover, 500 million new entrants to the labour force are expected over the next ten years, mostly women and youth.   

ð  The ILO emphasizes the critical role that entrepreneurs play in creating employment. It carries out significant promotional and technical activities to assist governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations create more and better jobs in countries around the world. Enterprise is at heart of employment creation. Both public and private sectors create employment. While the majority of people aspire to work in the formal economy, the majority of new work opportunities in the last decade have been generated in the informal economy. Though significance deficits exist in the formal economy, workers in the informal economy are often poorly paid, unprotected, unregulated and unrepresented.

ð  Given the large and growing numbers of people that decent work and better lives, the pressure is on our political leaders to respond to people’s demands worldwide.  ILO defined Decent Work is the concept that integrate all forms of work and employment with rights, social protection and voice or representation.           

Then we have example of Amul Products.  “Amul” was created by government initiative and by the passion of people like Dr. Kurien. It wanted to bring out change in the way milk was produced and distributed on a massive scale. The vision was big, there was passion, there was capital, there was terrific leadership, sustained and involved engagement with the grass-roots, and the formation of partnerships to create the impact via the business. They have to think entrepreneurship.

Chill Breeze opines that an indifferent government and an inefficient bureaucracy have ensured the poorer strata of society remain deprived of the benefits of development. They are still bogged down by unemployment, poverty, illiteracy and lack of medical facilities. But with the arrival of social entrepreneurship all that is set to change.  In the past, it was the job of NGOs to make a difference to the lives of the less fortunate. But the problem was that they did not have enough funds to bring about sweeping changes in society. Enter the social entrepreneur, who took it upon himself to revolutionize things.  

While business entrepreneurs aim to generate profits, social entrepreneurs aim to improve  social values. But they differ from non-governmental ogranisations(NGOs) in that they aim to make broad-based, long-term changes, instead of few immediate small-time results. They recognize when a section of the society is stuck and offer innovative ways to break out of its stagnant state. They find out the things that don’t work and alter the system to solve the problems. They consider the affected people as part of the solution and not as passive beneficiaries. They propagate the solution and persuade the whole society to adopt it.              

Recently, the first international conference on social entrepreneurship was held in India, at the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences(TISS). Some of eminent personalities participated and delivered lectures in this conference regarding to social entrepreneurship.

ð  Pooja Warier told  that social entrepreneurship as a tool for social change, encourage the development of social entrepreneurship in India, and create mutually beneficial links between social entrepreneurship and institutions.

ð  Sarah Dodds said that strongly believes in the power of individuals to change the community and eventually the world.

ð  Stan Thekaekara in his opines, just change attempted a deconstruction of the concept of social entrepreneurship from the perspective of people who struggle to live everyday.

ð  Sunil Abraham feels though that social entrepreneurship is a western concept, a concept that is market-friendly and places too much spotlight on the social entrepreneurs.

ð  Dr.S.Parasuraman has argued that India is in a paradoxical state, with a few individuals accumulating wealth whereas a vast majority are losing livelihoods, are landless and are continuously marginalized. From this, he said, arises the need for entrepreneurial approaches towards social change. Some examples from India are already being pointed to as successful models of social entrepreneurship – SEWA, Just Change, Chidline, Fair Trade Forum, Barefoot College, and Aravind Eye Care, dings of the interior.   

Some entrepreneurship is quickly revolutionizing the less privileged sections of India. Here are some of the more prominent social entrepreneurs in India:

ð  Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy and Thulasiraj D. Ravilla established Aravind Eye Hospital in 1976. Till date, it has treated more than 2.3 million outpatients and carried out more than 2.7 lakh operations in 2006-07, about two-third of them free.

ð  Barefoot College, started by Bunker Roy in 1972, has made innumerable school dropouts in villages into “barefoot” doctors, engineers, architects, teachers, designers and communications.

ð  Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) started by Ela Bhatt in 1972 provides financial, health, insurance, legal, childcare, vocational and educational services to poor self-employed women, who comprise its members.

ð  Bhartiya Samruddhi Investments and Consulting Services started by Vijay Mahajan is the first microfinance project to lend to the poor.

ð  Narayana Hrudayalaya Institute of Medical Science and its network of hospitals run by Devi Shetty perform about three dozen surgeries a day. Of these, 60 percent are carried out at nominal cost or free of charge.

ð  Technology Information Design Endeavour (TIDE) run by S. Rajagopalam and Svati Bhogle supports the development of financially rewarding and environmentally-friendly methods invested by leading research institution into thriving enterprises.              

Need for Agriculture and Rural Development in India      

Since 1997, more than 25,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide. Most of these suicides have occurred in states: Maharastra, Karnatak, Andhra Pradesh. The suicides are eloquent a testimony as any about the desperate plight of rural India. Some 850 million Indians depend on agriculture for a living. According to Census of India, 2001 nearly 58.4 percent of total workforce depend up on agriculture sector. In State of Andhra Pradesh 39.6 percent are depend up agriculture allied activities. Most are small-scale farmers, with between one and three acres to cultivate. Many are dry-farmers, with no access to irrigation. Most are illiterate, with few skills to offer-if there were jobs available off the farm.

The government has set an ambitious target of boosting annual growth to 10 percent from its current impressive 8 percent level. There is no way to achieve this without pushing the country’s huge agricultural sector from a sluggish 1.5 to 3.2 percent annual growth rate to at least 4 percent. With little funds to invest, the government is counting on private investment from large corporations to modernize Indian agriculture: shift more production from grains to fruits and vegetables, build a cold chain to get produce to Indian and foreign urban consumers who will pay a premium for fresh produce and processed foods, consolidate small holdings and streamline agricultural production. India is the last underdeveloped agriculture frontier for the world’s large agribusiness concerns. Its varied climate and relatively large area of arable land mean a large variety of crops can be grown year-round. A veritable stampede is on by some or the biggest players in India and in the world- Reliance, Mahindra, Bharti, ITC but also Monsanto, Cargill, Wal-Mart and Carrefour – to stake a claim to the vast, under- exploited domain of Indian agriculture.

The need is great. An astonishing 40 percent of world’s poor live in India, including one-third of the world’s malnourished children. A report to the United Nations General Assembly last September entitled the Extent of Chronic Hunger and Malnutrition in India asserted that hunger and malnutrition are bigger problems in India. As India’s economy has taken off, the gap between those who have enough to eat and those who don’t has widened. And while India claims self-sufficiency in food grains, and even exports grain, it has failed to make food available to all its citizens who need it. This year, for the first time in decades, India was forced to import food grains in order to meet its targets for basic food reserves. Will the corporatization of Indian agriculture deliver food to India’s hungry and improve the lives of poor farmers.

While the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s boosted production enormously and made India self-reliant in food grains, the environmental and social costs were also staggering. Production of grains is now falling. Pesticide use in India is also very high, resulting in high levels of pesticide residues present throughout the food chain.  And India is facing a severe water crisis. With 17 percent of the world’s population, India has just 4 percent of the world’s freshwater. India’s surface water is highly polluted by untreated sewage and industrial effluents, while its underground aquifers  are being depleted at a far greater rate than they are being recharged, resulting in falling water.  The massive industrialization of  Indian agriculture will put new pressures on India’s stressed water supply.     

India has the great good chance, as a developing country, to choose to develop differently. It can try to invest its own paradigm for an agricultural future that increases  yields and better connects producers to consumers but that also improves farmer’s lives, lifts millions out of poverty, conserves water and cleans up the environment. There are many efforts in India to do just this. Organic farming is more labour intensive than industrial farming- and India has no shortage of rural manpower.

Dr. Swaminathan is the revered father of India’s Green Revolution. His thinking about agricultural development appropriate for India and its rural poor has led him in the intervening decades to embrace a philosophy of “human-centered development”. He is committed to making India’s small-scale farmers empowered producer by giving them the knowledge and the access to cutting-edge technologies- including genetically engineered crops where beneficial – they need. He is also committed to pursuing practices that are environmentally sustainable.

Dr. Swaminathan’s vision comprehends “the twin challenges of poverty eradication and natural resources conservation.” He uses a combination of strategies, including micro-credit, water conservation, natural soil enrichment, wireless internet Kiosks to connect farmers to information, and increase their knowledge, and cooperatives where farmers can consolidate their buying and selling power. He advocates weaning India from the monocultures of wheat and rice, and for farmers to return to cultivating the highly nutritious and locally adopted grain crops of millet. An Evergreen Revolution such as Dr. Swaminathan’s has the potential to bring sustainable, equitable solutions to India’s agrarian crisis. It can also create a desperately needed new agricultural paradigm, not only for other countries in the developing world but for a developed world increasingly alarmed by the environmental costs and health risks of industrial agriculture. Large-scale industrial agriculture was an invention of the second industrial revolution and the 20^th- century. Along the lines of what it achieved in record time with telecommunications and information technology, India has within its power the potential to lead a 21^st- century revolution in agriculture.

                                                 

In the context of technology for rural areas the concepts of technological determinism and technology transfer are equally important. It aims at using traditional skills and capabilities and making them commercially competitive. Technologies which will result in low cost production and in products marketable close to the point of manufacture, particularly, in rural sector, will be promoted. Government will give preference to products of such technologies in its purchases. Specific areas of thrust have also been identified  as agriculture including dry land farming, optimum use of water resources, increased production of pulses and oilseeds, provision of drinking water in rural areas, low cost housing etc.

Poverty Alleviation Through Micro-credit

            In India alone, over two-thirds of its one billion plus population is poor. Each day, 35,000 children under 5 die of starvation or preventable diseases. It’s the largest poverty epidemic in Indian history. Economic progress in countries such as India and China has the potential  to lift millions out of poverty.  For decades fighting poverty has been the responsibility of  government, but they have been generally ineffective. Non-governmental organizations(NGOs)on the other hand, are strong advocates for change, creatively complementing government poverty programmes, but lacking the capacity to transform the lives of the three billion poor.

            One such approach is micro-finance. Micro-financial institutions (MFI) focus on creating micro-entrepreneurs by providing access to micro-credit. While there are mixed reports on the overall impact of such programmes. MFI as vehicles have the ability to impact very significant numbers of rural people.  

            Economic engines of the private sector to the rural poor. Micro-loans make a small-scale contribution by providing them access to cash for personal needs such as payment of dowry, medical emergency or repayment of prior loans. But as economic engines, the loans have severe limitations. Banks and micro-finance intermediaries making the loans say they are intended to empower the rural poor to start and run their own business. Yet, the interest rates charged are often very less percent for the poorest. A recent study of 50 micro-credit programmes in 17 villages in South India showed that less than 5 percent of recipients used the money to start small business.  The current debate on the future of micro-finance is about how to cope with its growing pains, as it seeks to roughly double the number of loan recipients to 175 million by 2015. If poverty alleviation were simply a matter of lending $ 100 to all the world’s poor, poverty could be eradicated easily, it would cost about $300 billion spent on assistance over the last half century. Micro-credit can’t build equity or jobs on the required scale.  From farming to alternate fuels, rural areas have great potential for developing sustainable industries, and yet there is almost no serious effort to realize that potential. Micro-credit has created to attract more private investment and commercial activity in deprived communities. Micro-credit brought private investment capital to millions of poor people on a small scale and even proved it could be profitable. The challenge now is to bring investment capital on a larger scale to start  business, with its scalability, risk-taking and accountability for results, is in a position to do this. Without vibrant economic activity where the poorest live, the global fight against poverty will be swamped by the nearly 100 million population increase in developing countries each year. 

            Currently, there are approximately 90 million people being served by a range of microfinance products and services. Yet the reality is that there are more than 500 million potential microfinance customers around the world. This major untapped market is finally being recognized for its profit potential by bankers, equity investors, and entrepreneurs.  The current microfinance market consist of cooperatives, NGOs and commercial banks providing a range of products and services. Fueling their expansion is a crowded playing field of grant-makers, debt and equity investors, technology innovators and technical service providers. But a more strategic collaboration of all these players is going to be necessary to expand the fight against poverty through micro-credit. The Micro-credit Summit Campaign’s 2005 Annual Report provided statistics on over 3,000 micro-credit institutions, many of whom serve less than 5,000 clients. There needs to be further cooperation among NGOs, and Banks, with the latter now entering this market in increasing numbers. Moreover, micro-credit provides must also recognize the limits of financial products in improving the lives of poor people and explore alternatives beyond the industry’s current scope of traditional micro-credit.                 

Areas which can be  applied to this field ;

ð  Values, beliefs, moral reasoning and ethical practice

ð  Knowledge and skills in interpersonal communication, group facilitation and community processes

ð  Strengths perspective

ð  Understanding of and commitment to social justice

ð  A discipline focus  on the social, political, environmental and economic context of social and personal problems. 

Social Entrepreneurship Awareness Programmes:  Some of them are;

ð  Employment generation

ð  Utilization of local raw materials- agricultural products, mineral and human resources

ð  Satisfaction of local markets and needs

ð  Increasing food production

ð  Population control

ð  Conservation of energy

ð  Promotion of  exports

ð  Import substitution

ð  Minimum damages to environment

ð  Exploitation of local advantages of the country

ð  Exploitation of aptitudes in the people and  their skills.

ð  Should use locally available resources.

ð  Use of local energy sources.

ð  Should  encourage participation of local community

ð  Should be labour intensive, energy reducing and cost effective        

Some of the important aspects of this approach are enumerated below:  

ð  Science and Technology has established its viability in terms of products, processes, technologies and development models, which have tremendous potential in addressing the problems of rural areas.

ð  Every community is empowered to pursue its own vision, have its own strategic development plan in an enabling environment with access to all resources required for its effectiveness in realizing its vision.

ð  The well-being and dignity of every person, family and community are ensured.

ð  Every person has access to information, technology and resources to realize his full potential and capacity to use it.

ð  Encourage the convergence of existing and new development initiatives to respond in a holistic way to the community development plans and defined needs.

ð  People’s participation is the key factor for all initiatives.  

India, according to some estimates, has the largest number of NGOs  per capita. Most of  them are doing a glorious job in their respective domains, impacting the lives of citizens in localized spheres of activities. But given the size and multitude of problems confronting India a different approach is also surely required. One that unleashes the entrepreneurial energies of the people and dove-tails into the market economy. One that creates financial sustenance if not independence. Entrepreneurship is an acknowledged method of job creation and income creation.                    

   

Conclusion

The social development strategy is to alleviate poverty through generation of wage employment programmes, build rural infrastructures, provide and maintain basic services in the rural areas with an ultimate object of improving the living standard. Now, it is high time that the global microfinance community adopted hard-nosed business strategies to help an even greater number lift themselves out of poverty. 

Today, everybody  live in an age of entrepreneurship. When Bill Gates, the founder and CEO of Microsoft or Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop seem to be better known around the world than most heads of state, one might conclude that the age of the entrepreneur has arrived. He or she exercises influence well beyond economics, helping to shape political, environmental and cultural arenas. Entrepreneurs of large multinational corporations have had a distinctly important role in shaping today’s process of LPG.     

Science and technology development is confined only to cities. Whereby the under developed rural area remind as it is even after sixty two years  of Indian independence. It is the duty of government and voluntary organizations to go to rural areas and bring awareness about second green revolution, women empowerment, health, education, use of rural resource, and social entrepreneurship. They should also encourage rural people to participate in local panchayat   administration to bring transparency in administration.

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