There is general consensus that Government has a critical
role to play in development of effective social enterprise ecosystem. However,
there is less agreement on what that role should be. In my opinion, government
should limit itself to coordinating activities for social enterprise ecosystem;
it should be responsible for activities such as designing policies for sector,
channeling funds and providing networking platform for supply and demand side
players. Government should not be involved in managing actual operations of
social enterprises which should be outsourced to 3rd party intermediaries
who have expertise to produce best possible results in a cost effective manner.
Given the fragile social enterprise ecosystem in developing
countries, there is a tendency for government entities to become involved in directly
managing operations of social enterprises. This inevitably leads to suboptimal output
for variety of reasons. Firstly governments do not have the required expertise
to design, develop and deliver innovative social solutions to community in a
manner that a professional social innovation focused organization would be able
to do. Moreover, often taking over running of social enterprises means that government
has to develop infrastructure and hire manpower to manage operations. Given the
bureaucratic nature of governments, governments often end up spending well
above the actually needed budget to achieve this. Lastly, government
involvement inevitably leads to outcome of the project compromised by political
influences that come to the fore due to government’s involvement in the
project.
[1]Benazir Income Support program (BISP) in Pakistan is a
cash transfer program on the same lines as [2] Bolsa Familia or Oportunidades
in Brazil and Mexico respectively. Launched in July 2008, the program has
expanded to cover 4.7 million beneficiaries across Pakistan with annual
disbursements of around $650 million by 2014. Run directly by federal government,
substantial investment has been made by the government to develop
infrastructure and manpower for various units involved in running operations of
the project. Under the program, selected households who are deemed to be making
less than $60 per month are given around $15 each month in cash transfers to
support their monthly budgets. The motivation behind launch of the program is the
belief that cash transfers will allow the families to spend more on availing
fundamental services such as health and education. However, today BISP is
widely regarded as an inefficient program marred by government bureaucracy and
corruption. There is no clarity on selection criteria used to select households
as well any research on effectiveness of the program in reducing poverty. Critics
of the program, and there are many inside Pakistan, claim that only 60% of BISP
funds are going to deserving households. Rest of the funds are being diverted
towards non-genuine households due to widespread corruption in government ranks.
This is just one of many examples where government’s
intervention in managing operations of social enterprises has severely compromised
the effectiveness of the program. Government’s
core competency lies in coordinating resources for the economy and it should
stick to that leaving specialized social focused entities to manage the
operations of the social enterprises. What are your thoughts on this?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.