The full report is available here.
Facilitation partner : McKinsey & Company
Partners : Ashoka, Catalyst 2030, Echoing Green, Schwab Foundation and Skoll Foundation
With so many crises to manage simultaneously, governments around the world are under pressure to become faster and more efficient at achieving societal goals. Achieving goals such as access to quality healthcare and education, environmental sustainability or a balanced recovery from the pandemic will require changes to existing societal systems. Indeed, the underlying challenges are systemic in nature, and the changes required can be beneficial not only from a societal point of view, but also from an economic one.
Systemic social entrepreneurs can be key allies to governments in implementing these structural changes. Many social entrepreneurs take a systemic approach to solving societal problems - we refer to them as “systemic social entrepreneurs” throughout this report. As society's research and development laboratory, they strive to change the policies, practices, power dynamics, social norms or mindsets that currently impede progress. They apply participatory, people-centered methods to develop solutions to implement innovative approaches, which can be an excellent complement to governments' macro-economic perspectives, and which can also be used to improve quality of life.
the macroeconomic outlook of governments, and can deliver financial benefits to companies. For example, the financial benefits that social entrepreneurs could generate under the aegis of Ashoka in Germany alone have been estimated at over 18 billion euros ($21 billion) a year.1 In addition, their presence within vulnerable communities and the relationships of trust they maintain with them make them important partners in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Governments are also in a unique position to foster change. They hold the key to changing many societal systems by institutionalizing successful innovations developed by systems social entrepreneurs to reach all their constituents, for example by translating them into policy or adopting them into government programs. By changing existing administrative practices, governments can create the support ecosystems that social entrepreneurs need to develop more innovative solutions.
As transformative guides capable of mobilizing diverse coalitions around a common vision, social entrepreneurs could even enhance the legitimacy and accountability of political processes.
social entrepreneurs don't just give people fish or teach them how to fish. They won't rest until they've revolutionized the fishing industry.”
Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, United States
There are five areas in which governments can act to create enabling ecosystems that unleash the potential of social entrepreneurs:
- Harness the power of information by sharing and co-creating data.
Strengthen the capacities of civil servants and social entrepreneurs to enable mutual understanding and collaboration
mutual understanding and collaboration.
- Develop financing models that recognize the characteristics of systems-based social entrepreneurs.
- Promote collaboration between public sector organizations and between the public, private and social sectors.
- Foster institutionalization through the co-creation or adoption of successful innovations.
For each of these areas, this report makes concrete recommendations and provides real examples of changes implemented by governments around the world. It is based on discussions with over 50 government representatives and social entrepreneurs from around the world. While our examples focus on national governments, they can also be applied at local and international levels. Coordinated efforts at all levels of government could reinforce the impact of the actions proposed here.
