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In Uttar Pradesh, India, there is a growing micro-system of women-led "safe e-mobility networks" driven by 60 battery-powered e-rickshaws that connect women and girls to schools, colleges, and healthcare facilities. It responds to women's severely constrained mobility and connectivity, which prevent them from working or gaining an education. This microcosm has opened up a world of possibilities for women in the district of Mirzapur. “Nothing can stop us now," they have told me. But one wonders and frets about how this becomes visible and connected to the economy at large? Often such solutions are inhibited due to the lack of an enabling architecture for scaling or becoming part of what we would define as the 'mainstream' economy.
Click here to read more about the Development Alternatives’ social and inclusive entrepreneurship initiatives On 18th April 2023, the United Nations adopted a historic resolution on "Promoting the Social and Solidarity Economy for Sustainable Development," recognising its contribution to the areas of decent work, poverty alleviation, inclusion, social transformation, and promotion of international labour standards and fundamental rights at work and ultimately for achievement and localisation of sustainable development goals (SDGs)1. The social economy typically comprises associations, cooperatives, foundations, mutual societies, non-profit organisations, and social enterprises. The Indian economy, measured in GDP terms, has been growing at an impressive annual rate of 6.5% or more in the last decade, leaving in its wake, however, deepening inequality, lack of social cohesion, and worrying questions about the effects of economic growth on environmental degradation. With its ability to be inclusive, generate livelihood opportunities, and innovate solutions within ecological limits, the social economy opens the door to new institutional and business structures, facilitating the transition to a fairer, more inclusive, and sustainable economy for a country such as India. Our country has a great legacy and a head start on building institutional structures for equitable economic activity, serving as an instrument for government agencies to tackle issues of poverty through economic and social empowerment. Amul remains a shining example of a large-scale cooperative. The Self-Help Group movement in India is the largest social empowerment initiative globally, with now 92 million women as members. There are also noteworthy examples of social enterprises that create social and environmental impact through innovation in business models and by involving people in their supply chains. Scaling any of these, however, also comes with its set of challenges, where community voices can get lost, limitations in addressing local unemployment, and their restricted impact on the local economy. India can add another relatively unexplored dimension within the broader discourse on social economy structures. Greater engagement under the social economy framework with the informality within which India's economy lives and breathes could propel its transition to an inclusive and equitable future. This would mean recognition of the potential of local, everyday entrepreneurs (who remain invisible in the landscape of India’s mainstream economy) in creating social and economic impact that is deep-rooted and sustainable. Inclusive entrepreneurship initiatives of Development Alternatives rely on the use of social innovation tools and methods to create local “entrepreneurship ecosystems” in which a large number of actors work collaboratively to make it easier for people, especially women, and youth, to set up businesses and run them profitably. Like the ones in Mirzapur - where ordinary people who were excluded from becoming entrepreneurs – becoming successful business persons, creating an average of at least three jobs, and driving the system as powerful change agents within their community and economy. With this added dimension to the social economy, there are many ways India can benefit from the UN resolution and, in turn, its adoption. It can drive policy reforms that acknowledge reality and capitalize upon entrepreneurial energies in the form of new modes of ownership, shared enabling infrastructure with (digital) connections to the larger ecosystem, unlocking of new market forces (with public procurement and information abundance), innovative mechanisms of socially driven capital like peer to peer funds or social stock exchange and the definition of new indicators for impact and measurement of well-being. With the social economy as a backbone - 'causal collisions’ or alternative narratives of the e-mobility network will become the norm in this road less travelled - where progress is based on social value creation, inclusion, and equity, beyond just money. The thought pieces in this newsletter share our belief that a new social economy of India, built on principles of social innovation, is not only a befitting parallel to capitalist economics but a much-needed pathway for its bold transformation that will present itself as a true example of a future-fit country and help build a new world order.
Endnotes
Kanika Verma |
