Ever since Nobel Prize-winning Muhammad Yunus pioneered microfinance in 1970s Bangladesh, social enterprise in a development context has been proven to stimulate local wealth, wellbeing, and to elevate marginalised communities. Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that many across the international development sector are looking more closely at the role of social enterprise in the aid-delivery model.
Today, some of the world's largest governmental and non-governmental international bodies are embedding social enterprise into their strategies (think of UNICEF Nicaragua's Sociopreneur Initiative).
With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expiring next year, the UN's new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) further underscore this shift in thinking. According to the UN, the SDGs will step in where the MDGs fell short by adopting a more joined-up, "inclusive growth" strategy, part of which puts serious emphasis on diversifying developing economies by making it easier to create jobs, start sustainable businesses, and trade.
Social enterprises will no doubt play a big part in this, and against a backdrop of tightening aid budgets – DfID credited the economic downturn for its £1.7 billion cut in actual spending between 2010 and 2012 – one can imagine they will also be turned to for their capacity to deliver sustainable bang for their buck.
It's an approach that the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the Korean Government's agency for international development work, are exploring through a new partnership with the British Council Korea.
Building upon the expertise and networks of the two organisations, the ongoing collaboration seeks to promote innovative approaches to development aid, including the use of social enterprise, through a series of capacity-building programmes for Korea's overseas aid professionals.
When I meet with KOICA and British Council Korea in June she tells me more about this new skills-sharing model.
HyunYoung Jo works for KOICA's civil society organisations (CSO) division, where she supports capacity-building activities for CSO workers delivering aid projects. She tells me KOICA is looking to build a large-scale framework of social enterprise as part of a "social business model" throughout their grants and partnerships. "Putting social enterprise into our agenda is new and exciting for us," she says. "We're hoping our participants can apply their learnings to their projects in the near future."
Hyunjung Oh, a project director for the British Council Korea, elaborated on the roots of this link-up. "We've been delivering capacity building programmes for social entrepreneurs in Korea for nearly five years," she explains. "We met KOICA at a conference last September and it was clear that working together would definitely expand the horizons of both organisations."
Steady growth for social enterprise
The social enterprise sector in Korea has made steady growth over the past decade, Oh tells me. A big boost came in 2007 when the country passed a law on the 'promotion of social enterprises', which defined a social enterprise's "purpose" and stipulated a government support scheme for them.
She explains that "the law's main focus was to address chronic youth unemployment", a figure which hovered around 10 per cent throughout the early 2000s. Today, she says, young Koreans have made the sector their own. "The previous generation wouldn't know what a social enterprise was," she says. "Now it has become one of the options for some college graduates."
In light of this success, capacity-building partnerships with other sectors is where the British Council can add original value. "Programmes like the one with KOICA are where we find our edge and can create significant impact," says Oh.
Strides have been made on the international development front too. Once heavily aid-dependent on countries like the US, South Korea transformed from receiver to donor when it joined the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in 2010. With over half of its ODA budget directed towards neighbouring countries and nearly 17 per cent concentrated in Africa, Korea aspires to be a major player for good not only on the Asian continent but in LDCs (least-developed countries) and LMICs (lower-middle-income countries) around the world.
The British Council/KOICA programme began with a three-day, in-country residential training, followed by a week-long UK study visit for delegates from NGOs, social enterprises, and companies working in overseas aid. Participants heard from the UK's international development sector as well as leading social enterprises and support agencies, including DfID, BOND, Divine Chocolate, Challenges Worldwide and UnLtd, who shared learnings from their work.
Even though Korea's own social enterprises get many things right, both partners emphasised that skills-sharing doesn't simply mean picking up the Korean model and planting it abroad.
Linking to less developed countries
"Things can be very different when we talk about developing countries," says Jo. "When we first started the programme I couldn't find the bridge between social enterprise concepts in Korea and the concept in developing countries. So we are trying to see how they can be linked. We want to find models that make the best use of local resources, skills and needs."
One example is a recent Mongolia-based project delivered by KOICA and a leading Korean NGO called Good Neighbours. Together, they established a social enterprise selling an eco-friendly heating device known as the "G-saver", created by Good Neighbours and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). The device reduces fuel expenses, labour and air pollution during the sub-zero Mongolian winter.
"The whole reason for seeking a social enterprise is ultimately for sustainability and ownership in developing countries," says Jo. "We have to be able to hand the running of it over to local people as part of our exit strategy."
Both Jo and Oh are confident the collaboration has long-term potential and that the benefits will flow in both directions. For KOICA's, the international expertise leveraged by the British Council will pull innovation and impact into their programs, while the British Council sees opportunities for bilateral learning in the local sector.
"Many Korean social enterprises have been inward-focused and concerned primarily with problems within the country," explains Oh, "but I see an opportunity to support our social entrepreneurs in looking to issues outside the country. We want to encourage diversification because, ultimately, it will make them more financially sustainable and internationally competitive. There are a lot of possibilities."
Contact the British Council at social.enterprise@britishcouncil.org
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