What Social Entrepreneurs can teach government and businesses

Since 2002 Klaus Schwab at the World Economic Forum in Davos has been very daring. He has been introducing a fundamentally new type of change agent to mingle and mix and indeed change the mindset of the movers and shakers of the world.

For four days, every January, Indian social entrepreneurs, men and women with guts, vision and several important grass root messages with a global impact, rub shoulders with several Indian CEOs of multi-million dollar companies to try and make them think and act differently. But in a very invisible, non-threatening non-violent Gandhian way other CEOs with interests in India are listening. Asking different questions about India, wanting to meet people living and working in the villages, slums, with tribals and conceding, Indian social entrepreneurs have a point.

If the CEOs of the biggest companies in the world are listening why are the governments in the South so blissfully indifferent?

The Government of India for instance do not have a strong independent mind of their own to make Indian Companies see the importance and relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This is because at the highest policy levels the Government is convinced the expensive top down professional, commercialized “business” solutions being offered by Indian corporates to tackle poverty is the only one. There is no quick urban solution to deep rooted rural problems but they just do not seem to get it.

Tragically big Indian companies who are so visibly seen in Davos have small minds when it comes to their CSR policies. What prevents them with the enormous profits they make to give back to society and set examples for government to follow? It can be attributed to the growing 300 million instant and newly-rich lower middle class who are their consumers. If their consumers want to remain ignorant about the effects of global warming on the lives of the rural poor, why should Indian companies bother?

CSR is not about charity it is about partnership. It is about simple, inexpensive and scalable models that could reach millions more. It is about taking a small step to save the environment together. It is about Government and Indian companies learning from the outside world with humility and openness. It’s about sharing practical innovative social and business models on recycling waste in cities, on fair trade, on improving the slums in cities, on decentralizing decision making to the community level, about making low cost drugs affordable, to reach basic health services to remote communities.

We claim ourselves to be a world power, a global giant in the making, when Arjun Sengupta in his official Report on the Unorganized Sector to the Government tells us 78% of India population earn less than Rs 20/day!

Who are these Indian social entrepreneurs? They are people who have taken years to make their ideas, approaches and methods work and produce amazing results. They are visionaries misunderstood for at least 10 years before their out-of-the-box ideas are accepted as mainstream. They have a “fire in their belly”. Like war is too big an issue to be left to the generals alone, tackling poverty is too big an problem to be left to the governments or the corporate sector. The missing link is the Social Entrepreneur.

When the social entrepreneurs first appeared in Davos many seriously questioned Klaus’s judgement labeling them “wierdos” street fighters, rabble rousers remembering Seattle saying it was trying to mix oil with water.

Today six years down the line the global corporate atmosphere is more accepting of the social entrepreneur’s constructive contribution. Yet it seems it may take a longer time for equal partnerships to emerge in India.