South Asia WEBINAR: Social Enterprise Model of Local Solutions - Road to Sustainability
Date: 28 March 2023
Time: 14.00 in India & Sri Lanka; 14.30 in Bangladesh; 14.15 Nepal

- Introduction and program by Ahmed Sohel, Grameen Shakti

- Social Enterprise Model: Experience from Bangladesh by Abdul Arif from Grameen Shakti, Bangladesh (pdf, 3,2 MB).

- Finance, Scale and Market Related Challenges in Organic Agriculture Social Enterprise Model by Jyoti Awasthi from Satat Sampada, India. (pdf, 0.9 MB)

-Approaches to Overcome Barriers in Energy-Based Livelihoods of Women Entrepreneurs in Nepal by Manjari Shrestha from ENERGIA/Hivos, Nepal. (pdf, 1,1 MB)

- Dennis Mombauer from SILYCAN Trust, Sri Lanka

Participants: CANSA and INFORSE members and stakeholders from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka and Nepal.

- Background: Social enterprises apply business solutions to social and environmental issues. The ultimate goal is to attain sustainability financially while addressing social issues and resolving environmental challenges. Local solutions addressing energy, livelihood and water issues have significant development and climate benefits. Coupled with entrepreneurship and innovation to solve problems, these solutions could act as catalysts for creating employment, generating social benefits and addressing underlying
environmental challenges.

However, social businesses of local solutions need to reconcile to multiple finance, scale, and market related challenges. As businesses, the fundamental questions could be on revenue generation streams and attracting investment into the venture to cover cost and grow its activities. Another challenge could be access to customers (market) – individuals, small businesses which is vital to sustain a business. Similar to traditional enterprises, social businesses provide quality products and services, the challenge
remains to get visibility and to reach buyers. But finding customers is one of the main bottlenecks for SEMs to grow business and enhance social impact. Besides, social enterprises grapple with issues related to upskill, access to finance, skills and resources to identify potential partners including that of the private sector.

Social enterprise is increasingly seen as a route to deliver products and services with social and environmental benefits to vulnerable populations. There are several success stories across South Asia of social enterprises as models. Over a period of 5 years of implementing local solutions in various socio-economic contexts and climate settings in the Eco Village Development project, SEM models could develop organically. This webinar takes us through some of the experiences in building social enterprise models in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka from scratch. Besides there are thematic experts to discuss the best practices of establishing and sustaining social enterprises.

The Webinar is in the framework of an NGO Cooperation Project on Eco-Village Development in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Partners are: INSEDA (India), CRT/N (Nepal), Grameen Shakti (Bangladesh), IDEA (Sri Lanka, DIB (Denmark) in cooperation of networks of CANSA and INFORSE/ INFORSE-SouthAsia. The Projects and activities are supported by Civil Society in Development (CISU), Denmark.

Read more:
- EVD Project: https://ecovillagedevelopment.net/
- Database: https://www.inforse.org/evd/
- CANSA: https://cansouthasia.net
- INFORSE-SA on EVD https://www.inforse.org/asia/EVD.htm

Contact: Santosh Patnaik, CANSA, E: santosh@cansouthasia.net
Gunnar B. Olesen, Judit Szoleczky: INFORSE, E: ove@inforse.org

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