FRI, JAN 17 2020-theG&BJournal- Over the past 20 years, social entrepreneurs working in partnership with the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship have improved the lives of 622 million people around the world. That’s the key finding of a new report, Two Decades of Impact: Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, out today.
This report shows how social entrepreneurs can achieve impact at scale, change the systems in which they operate and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.
The community has distributed more than $6.7 billion to projects and products that have enhanced livelihoods, including increasing healthcare access, providing clean energy solutions, and improving education outcomes. It has also mitigated more than 192 million tonnes of CO2, the equivalent to taking around 40.7 million passenger vehicles off the road for a year.
“This report challenges the notion that models of social innovation can be dismissed as small, isolated islands of success amidst our overwhelming global challenges,” said Hilde Schwab, Co-founder and Chairperson of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. “Consider the combined capability of all social innovators in the world, those recognized in networks like the Schwab Foundation, and the hundreds of thousands that exist in local communities around the world.”
The report showcases the diverse work of the community of social enterprises. They operate in more than 190 countries, with 25% of them reaching at least 90 countries each. All 10 countries in which social entrepreneurs are most active are low to middle income markets (with the exception of the US), and six of those are in Africa. They include Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and the US.
“Social innovators have pioneered sustainable approaches and inclusive business models, and serve as a clear demonstration that models of stakeholder capitalism can indeed work,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. “By having as its mission the engagement of all stakeholders in the creation of social and economic value, social entrepreneurs have proven how employees, customers, suppliers, local communities and the environment can benefit.”
Top examples of impact include:
-d.light, USA/Kenya, has reached 100 million people with solar products that have offset over 22 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, created employment for over 5,000 people and enabled 1.1 billion people without access to electricity to leapfrog the grid with affordable renewable energy solutions.
-Child and Youth Finance Movement, the Netherlands, which works globally to ensure full economic citizenship for children and youth, has changed policies in over 70 countries, and has had 53,300 partner organizations involved in Global Money Week in 174 countries in which 32 million children were reached.
-Room to Read, USA has changed the educational trajectories of 16 million children across 16 countries through its Literacy Programme and Girls’ Education Programme.
-Mothers2Mothers, South Africa has reached over 11 million women and children with life-changing HIV treatment services, achieving virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV among enrolled clients for the last five years. It has also created over 10,000 jobs for women living with HIV and established a WHO best practice model of peer-based care with mentor mothers.
-Homeless World Cup, United Kingdom, is a sports organization established specifically to tackle homelessness and poverty through football and street soccer worldwide. It has lifted 1.2 million people out of homelessness and has established 74 partner organizations across the globe.
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
The Schwab Foundation was established 20 years ago as a platform to support an under-recognized movement of people who were developing innovative business models delivering social or environmental good. It provides exposure, capacity building and a trusting community of social-change leaders within the World Economic Forum. It now represents 384 late-stage social innovators operating in more than 190 countries worldwide.
The majority of those surveyed in the report cited the three most-valued benefits of the community:
Global visibility through the recognition, legitimacy and inclusion at World Economic Forum events
Peer support through the Foundation’s community of like-minded social entrepreneurs
Exposure to leading-edge knowledge and methods, to enable more strategic and systemic approaches
The first two decades of the Foundation were focused on building awareness, enthusiasm and interest for social entrepreneurship. In the decade ahead the Foundation seeks to embed and scale up the potential of social innovation in existing systems globally.
“Social entrepreneurship demonstrates alternative working models to face the current critical challenges to our planet, our societies and our economies,” said François Bonnici, Head of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. “In the galvanizing era of our common agreed purpose towards the Sustainable Development Goals, we recognize that this community – as an organizational expression of social innovation – has much to offer, given how catalytic these approaches are already proving to be.”
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