Culture and Development

From Water Pumps in Cambodia to Global Social Enterprise Support

Combining the experience of running the DM2006 award winning social enterprise: Ideas-at-Work (IaW), the knowledge acquired with the Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) program (2007), and her recent completion of an MBA (2012), Angelique Smit decided to found the Social Enterprise Support initiative, a network group that provides support and advice to fellow social entrepreneurs in a variety of areas.

Created after intense consultation with social entrepreneurs about their support needs in their path to build successful business models, Social Enterprise Support (SE-Support) emerged as a place where social entrepreneurs from all over the world find fellow social-minded entrepreneurs for a sounding board, bouncing ideas, brainstorming or advice.

Association La Voûte Nubienne (AVN) was awarded a DM grant in 2009 to test an innovative strategy for scaling up and accelerating the recruitment and training of Nubian Vault (NV) apprentices and the growth of a self-sustaining market in NV houses in Burkina Faso. The Nubian Vault is an ancient Egyptian technique of building vaulted roofs made from local bricks without using any wood, instead of typical tin roofs that are more expensive and use scarce wood during construction. AVN is transforming traditional housing available in the harsh climate of the Sahel region by providing a sustainable housing alternative and helping to avoid further deforestation.

AVN has won one of the Dubai International Award for Best Practice (DIABP) to Improve the Living Environment. The Award, co-sponsored by UN-Habitat, specifically recognised the program in Burkina Faso for 'best practice transfer'.

The DIABP was established under the directives of late Sheikh Maktoum Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, during the United Nations International Conference in Dubai in November, 1995 with 914 participants from 95 countries, to recognize the best practices with positive impact on improving the living environment.

"All people want to do is live their lives." Dr. Suneeta Singh made that simple yet powerful statement during a panel discussion on “Empowering Gender Minorities in South Asia” on March 14, 2012 at the World Bank. Singh, a former Bank staffer and CEO of consulting firm Amaltas, spoke via videoconference from Delhi, India, while Nepal’s first openly gay elected official, Sunil Babu Pant, dialed in from Kathmandu. World Bank panel discussion on gender indentity in South Asia

Pant told the story of how he built a grassroots movement of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) people in Nepal, beginning in 2001. A turning point was in 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled that gay and transgendered people “are natural” and mandated certain benefits and an end to discriminatory laws. Today, the country is drafting a new constitution, and Pant said that if passed, it will be one of the most progressive in the world with regard to the rights of sexual and gender minorities.

This is the first of many multi-lingual blog post to come. It will appear in both English and Arabic.

Abduallah Abdel Qassim, 47, partner in aluminum shop making window frames (World Bank Photo Collection) High rates of youth unemployment across the Middle East and North Africa were a major catalyst for the Arab Spring revolutions. To help address this pressing issue, the Development Marketplace is preparing for a country-level competition in Egypt early next year. The proposed DM competition will focus on social entrepreneurs with projects that have a strong impact on creating sustainable job opportunities, especially for low-income and marginalized groups. The main focus of the Egypt DM will be on supporting projects in the agricultural supply chain sector.

In order to understand the bigger picture of social entrepreneurship in Egypt, I spoke with Ehaab Abdou, who recently joined the Development Marketplace team to develop the Egypt DM program. Prior to coming to the Bank Ehaab was an Ashoka Fellow and advisor for the Middle East Youth Initiative at Brookings. For Ehaab, there are three main challenges facing social entrepreneurship in the MENA region and in Egypt in particular:

In 2008 Development Marketplace competition, Helvetas was among the 22 winners with its proposal on Riverbed Farming for Landless and Land-Poor. The project has now entered its third season of cultivation.

Cultivation is done on large tracks of dry riverbeds in the Tarai region of Nepal, where land poverty is wide-spread and where at least 20 percent of households do not own land. The Nepalese climate allows riverbed farming for a maximum of seven to eight months a year except during monsoon season.

As a part of the project, local farmers are trained as extension agents. They receive technical assistance from the District Agriculture Development Office (DADO) staff and a Helvetas agriculturalist.

Currently 3,000 households in Kailali and Kanchanpur districts are cultivating watermelon, cucumber, pumpkin and other vegetables on about 400 hectares of riverbed land. Through a lease signed between the landless groups and the land owners, (generally the village development committees or community forestry user groups), landless groups cultivate produce and generate a significant income from their harvest.

"Erica Hagen in her piece in Development Outreach talks of the map Kibera effort being a ' first step toward local ownership and creation of shared information.' And in that comment I feel she has hit the nail on the head.'

As an investor, you throw in the previously quite entrenched Africa perception gap and you have a very interesting situation. I would describe the situation as a potential laboratory for innovation. An incredibly youthful skew to the population (60% of Kenyans are under the age of 24) surely is also an accelerator. And hence my desire and interest of late to get on the ground, pound the pavement and see if this has actually been a catalyst for innovation.

A few months ago, I wrote about why I believed that Russia’s planned “science city” was destined for failure, in my BusinessWeek column. I predicted that it would follow the path of the hundreds of cluster development projects before it. Political leaders would hold press conferences to claim credit for advancing science and technology; management consultants would earn hefty fees; real-estate barons would reap fortunes; and as always happens, taxpayers would be left holding the bag. You don’t read about the failures of tech clusters all over the world, in countries like Japan, Egypt, Malaysia, and in many regions of the United States. That’s because they die slow, silent deaths. And that is the way nearly all government-sponsored innovation efforts go.

Given my scathing criticism, I had expected the Russian Federation to declare me persona non grata. Instead, I got an urgent call from Ellis Rubinstein, president of the New York Academy of Sciences. He said that the Honorable Ilya Ponomarev, head of the high-tech subcommittee of the Russian State Duma (Russia’s parliament) had asked the academy to prepare a detailed report on this subject. And they wanted my input. Ellis also asked whether I would accompany his team to Russia to discuss the issue. I wasn’t sure if this was an elaborate scheme to have me locked up in a Russian gulag, but I hold Ellis in such high regard that I agreed.

Conversations after "Innovations in Development" Panel Innovations in development happen where traditional markets fail. The open discussion that followed the presentation I made on Monday to nearly 100 colleagues inside and outside the World Bank Group spurred the first of what I hope are many conversations on the role the World Bank Group and others can play in supporting social entrepreneurs in the developing world

What creativity that emerged from a competition on reducing the HIV related stigma and discrimination! In 2008, the South Asia Region of the World Bank put out a call for proposals for innovative ideas that tackle stigma and discrimination associated with HIV. Proposals had to target vulnerable populations such as transgender, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users, sex workers, and people living with HIV and AIDS. From the resulting 1,000 submissions, 75 finalists were identified and 26 winning projects were awarded funds for an 18 month implementation period. Projects used numerous creative ways to decrease discrimination through the use of theater, songs, new businesses and even a beauty pageant! Whoa, a beauty pageant, in development? This made me stop in my tracks. I had to find out more.

"Green"-themed social entrepreneurs are invited to compete for 35 SEED Awards that are focused on seven countries in Africa. Winners will receive expert advice on their business plans, access to tailored workshops, and be profiled through the SEED Initiative's international network.

Start-up social and environmental entrepreneurs working in developing and emerging countries are invited to apply. The deadline for applications is Aug. 16. Here's how to apply.

(Photo at right shows precious metals miner in Chocó Bioregion of Ecuador and Colombia where 2009 SEED winner Oro Verde is helping to reverse environmental degradation by promoting certified mining practices.)

Culture and Development

From Water Pumps in Cambodia to Global Social Enterprise Support

AVN Wins Dubai International Award for Best Practices!

'All People Want to Do Is Live Their Lives'

Social Entrepreneurship in Egypt: Challenges and Opportunities

Securing Livelihoods through Riverbed Farming

The wisdom in African crowds

Can Russia Build A Silicon Valley?

Innovation Happens When Traditional Markets Fail

Finding Beauty in Nepal's Third Gender

2010 SEED Awards Reach Out to Social Entrepreneurs

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