Governments are working hard on Social Innovation

In the past weeks, we have talked about ideas and models of social innovation and enterprises, mainly focusing on the entity itself. However, even though we can devise a perfect system of social enterprise, without an appropriate environment and beneficial public policies,we can't obtain a robust and healthy social innovation ecosystem in the long term.That's why governments should enter into the picture.

So what should government do to incubate social innovations? With this question in mind, I read about a report called "A Strategy for American Innovation" proposed by the white house, which demonstrates a systematical plan of American government.

The report has embedded president Obama's vision of achieving long term economic growth and international competitiveness while sustaining high quality life of Americans, mainly through education, innovation and jobs creation.The Obama administration proposed a " Wireless Initiative" aiming at ensuring businesses to reach 98% Americans with high-speed wireless access by the year of 2016.What's more, Patent Reform is also put on agenda to reduce enormous backlog of patent applications at U.S.Patent and Trademark Office, known as USPTO. The office has proposed a three-track model which will allow applicants to prioritize applications, enabling the most valuable patents to be applied to markets with a year.

In addition, Obama administration put forward an initiative about K-12 education, in order to make every high school student eligible for college or a career upon graduation. The most promising plan is called " Startup America", this plan will facilitate entrepreneurship across the country and especially encourage high-growth startups that can create economic growth and quality jobs.Apart from that, the plan also create 2 billion initiatives for impact investing and early-stage seed financing, which is closely related to social innovation topic.

To support innovative entrepreneurs, Affordable Care Act is passed in America, which makes it easier for Americans to start or join new businesses without giving up health coverage.President Obama also called for a simplified and permanent Research and Experimentation Tax Credit to create incentives for social innovation, and he also proposed to catalyze innovation hubs where scientists and entrepreneurs are brought together to come up with social innovations. What's more, the US secretary of State Hillary Clinton included "the global impact of economy" into foreign policy in 2012, encouraging a convergence of government, private sector and civil society.

To explore this topic from a global scale, I searched for some data about related governmental actions in other countries. According to an article, in the past 3 years, governments in U.S.,Europe and Australia have put more than 5 billion dollars for impact investment. In November 2011, the Europe Union launched the Social Business Initiative. The Big Social Capital(BSC) program in UK has raised 900 million dollars for investment in financial intermediaries to support social innovation and enterprises.And the government of Australia has allocated more than 20 million dollars for Social Enterprise Development and Investment Fund(SEDIF), in an effort to encourage financial products and method for social enterprises to receive fund support from private sectors and philanthropic areas.

A very interesting idea put forward by Singapore Government is that building a wider network with social enterprises to share Population Query and Machine-readable data, which can spur social innovation and public values.The Singapore Government is also implementing E-government system and Government Cloud Computing to improve efficiency and data services.

So what about developing countries? In 2010, the National Innovation Council was formed in India to build a base of pyramid fund for social innovation with the ultimate goal of raising 1 billion dollars.In Colombia, there is a Department of Social Prosperity which is devoted to compensating victims in social conflict, reducing poverty and introducing concepts of social innovation.What's more, there is also a Micro-Credit Company Pilot Program in China, aiming at improving lending regulations and financial services for social entrepreneurs in rural areas.

As can be seen from the Four Stages of Society theory, the fourth stage, society should tap ability of private, for-profit and non profit sectors to create most efficient and influential social impact.And it seems to me that government is doing more and more jobs behind the stage or acting as intermediaries, and the main roles in the front line will be played by private sectors,philanthropy and social enterprises. Is it the sign of social development if the government is playing a smaller and smaller role in society? If one day, social enterprises can work together with other forces to build a strong social ecosystem, do we still need a government with strong power?

Another question I'm thinking about is the differences of governmental actions in encouraging social innovations. There is a paradox for developing countries: they are in more desperate need of social innovation to tackle social problems, however, they don't have enough ability or resources to invest in social innovation like developed countries. What's more, cultural,historical, and political factors in developing countries are also making the problem more complicated.So how should developing countries balance their resources in different social need? According to their specific situations, what kind of different measures can they take to advocate social innovation?


SOURCE:


http://www.weforum.org/content/global-agenda-council-social-innovation-2013
http://www.socialvelocity.net/2009/07/the-significance-of-the-social-innovation-fund/
http://reports.weforum.org/social-innovation-2013/view/a-framework-for-government-action/
http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovation/policy/AustralianInnovationSystemReport/AISR2011/chapter-5-public-sector-and-social-innovation/government-initiatives-that-support-social-innovation-and-entrepreneurship/index.html
https://www.ida.gov.sg/About-Us/Newsroom/Media-Releases/2013/More-Government-Data-to-be-Made-Available-to-Spur-Social-Innovation-and-Create-Greater-Public-Value