Riding on the social entrepreneur bandwagon

Dipped in and out of SHINE, an "unconference" for social entrepreneurs in the UK over the last few days... The format was indeed interesting and it opened my eyes to the level of sophistication of the "social entrepreneurship" world in this country. Why can't we have that in Africa for sanitation?

"Social entrepreneurs" are definitely the flavour of the day in Britain, especially in this new era of the Blue & Yellow coalition (does that make them Green?). They've been around for a while and according to a recent report by ResPublica, the "Venture Society", they account for a decent share of the economy by now, with 62,000 social enterprises active in the UK, a combined turnover of GBP 24 billion and employing around 1.7 million people. They are established businesses that sell socially beneficial products and services. Most of them are small and "less" formal (although that does not mean informal). They are driven both by entrepreneurial and social values, thereby combining the best of both worlds, and have their own specific and clear legal status. The Government is so keen on them that they have set up a whole business support structures around them: for example, UnLtd (one of the lead organiser of the "unconference") is a charity that supports the development of social entrepreneurs. Around the country, there are also have numerous training and business support programs (the School for Social Entrepreneurs, the Said Business School and the Skoll Foundation being a few examples), specialised press, websites with practical evaluation tools, etc, etc... Clearly, the market is growing and in this new "venture" society, the Tories would quite like all of us to get employed, comfortably rich and benefit society at the same time...

So what is it like in developing countries? Well, clearly, the ground is well-covered too. The ASHOKA Foundation has been busy spotting "social entrepreneurs" talents around the world, and India for example, has clearly long jumped on that bandwagon. But there are still a lot of people out there who are not aware of this, of the potential of this new "art" form, which sits outsides big government, big business or charities. I am thinking for example, of informal water and sanitation entrepreneurs who are clearly providing a social good but also need to support their (often extended) family. So rather than relegating them to illegality, why not hurry up and make them join on the "social entrepreneurship" bandwagon?