| Programme :
Presentation: Text version of a PowerPoint Presentation:
Social capital
and social enterprise: A complementary strategy for sustainable development
of self help organizations of people with disabilities
Presented by Joseph Kwok
Slide 1
Social capital and social enterprise :
A complementary strategy for sustainable development of
self help organizations of people with disabilities
Joseph Kwok
2
Introduction
SHOPs and targets of BMF:
Governments, INGOs and NGOs should, by 2004, establish policies with
the requisite resource allocations to support the development and
formation of SHOPs in all areas, and with a specific focus on slum and
rural dwellers. Governments should take steps to ensure the formation of
parents associations at local levels by the year 2005 and federate them at
the national level by year 2010.
3
BMG action agenda for SHOPs:
…..should develop programmes for capacity-building to empower their
members, including youth and women with disabilities, to take consultative
and leadership roles in the community at large as well as in their own
organizations and enable them to serve as trainers in the development of
leadership and management skills of members of self-help organizations.
4
Introduction
- Achievement of the key policy targets: ?
- Government support for SHOP: ?
- APCD
- A complementary strategy of SHOPs through social capital investment
and social enterprise, to achieving self-sufficiency in sustainable
organizational development.
5-7
PERSPECTIVES On SHOPs
- SHOPs: processes of creation, empathetic emotional and mutual peer
support, experiential information, sharing network, new culture, new
ideology and new identity. A response to dissatisfaction of traditional
professional services.
- A United Nations’ Perspective on SHOPs
- UN International Year of the Disabled Persons 1981 and SHOPs
- 1993, United Nations’ 22 Standard Rules for actualizing the theme in
action. Rule 18 states that it is the responsibility of the state to
support the formation and development of the organizations of persons with
disabilities.
- Towards a Multi-Dimensional Understanding of the Study of SHOPs:
SHOPs common characteristics: (1) led or governed by members with
disabilities, including their family carers and relatives; (2) members
share a common problem or experience, or a common challenge; and (3) aim
to promote mutual benefit in a form of free reciprocal help, experiential
understanding, self-determination, and self-empowerment.
8
SHOPs’ varying characteristics:
- degree of involvement of non-disabled members;
- bureaucratic and hierarchical structure;
- membership size and coverage;
- benefits to members and non-members, services provisions and types,
complexity of programme and philosophy;
- role of advocacy; and
- alliances with other advocacy groups in civic issues and social change
orientations.
9-12
CRITICAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SHOPs
- Organization and leadership
- Relationship with partnership organizations
- Relationship with the society at large: The following questions are
considered to have theoretical interests for further deliberations:
- Will a collaborative route be more effective for NGOs in a highly
participatory democratic culture?
- Will a complementary strategy be more effective in a civil society
characterized by a diversity of power centers?
- Will a confrontational approach by NGOs be more influential in a
multiparty electoral system composed of many power centers?
- Will a consciousness-raising strategy work best within a state that
protects political and civil rights?
- Will investment in social capital a more critical factor affecting
sustainability of SHOPs.
- Disability as a human right issue in a globalization process and SHOPs
as disability rights advocate: lessons learned from the Convention
drafting process
13-15
SHOPS AS ACTORS IN CIVIL AND INCLUSION SOCIETY
- how to mobilize a genuinely inclusive civil society at every level;
- how to hold other institutions accountable for their actions and
ensure that they respond to social and environmental needs;
- how to ensure that international regimes are both implemented
effectively and work to the benefit of poor people and poor countries; and
- how to ensure that gains made at the global level are translated into
concrete benefits at the grass-roots.
- The social networks generated by SHOPs: an important form of ‘social
capital’
- SHOPs need to take note their roles in the making of civil society
when making their demands.
- Good indications that SHOPs in various Asian countries place emphasis
on their network with civic groups, NGOs and GOs, business and the private
sectors.
- SHOPs should not confine itself to the role of an interest
group, but more as a key stakeholder in civil society on general issues.
16-17
SHOPS IN RELATION TO OTHER ACTOR IN CIVIL SOCIETY
- many similar organizations with different interests backgrounds.
- few governments provide for recurrent support
- to compete with other grass-roots organizations or national level
interests groups for limited government budget.
- At the grass-roots level, there is a tendency for more self-help
groups to emerge
- The range of disabilities types also has been extending, particularly
those close to mental health situation and chronic illnesses.
- SHOPs to learn from the Convention drafting process.
18-23
SOCIAL CAPITAL AND SHOP
- The World Bank: social capital a major factor affecting the
sustainability of poverty eradication programmes.
- OECD: interests from human capital to include social capital and its
impact on sustainable social development.
- Hong Kong: the Community Investment and Inclusion Fund
- The ADB three pillars framework for poverty reduction: pro-poor
sustainable economic growth; inclusive social development; and good
governance.
- interventions for poverty reduction can be short term; medium term; or
long term
- Inclusive social development: Human Capital, Population Policy, Gender
and Development, Social Capital, Social Protection. Under social capital,
ADB writes,
- “When poverty is pronounced, social cohesion is often weak, and
communities suffer from conflict, marginalization, and exclusion…..
Social capital and a more inclusive society can be promoted through
antidiscrimination legislation, land reform, legal recognition of user
groups, and accessible systems of justice. Specific measures may be
required ethnic minorities.”
- World Bank: social capital refers to the institutions,
relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a
society’s social interactions. It is considered as a critical factor for
poverty alleviation and sustainable human and economic development.
- World Bank’ special web site on social capital.
- In particular, the World Bank considers social capital as a
significant factor for enhancing the quality, effectiveness and
sustainability of Community-driven Development (CDD) operations.
24-26
Social Capital Implementation Framework (SCIF):
- The five dimensions of social capital include: Groups and networks;
Trust and Solidarity; Collective Action and Cooperation; Social Cohesion
and Inclusion; and Information and Communication.
- World Bank’s two major social capital related CDD projects in Asia,
one in the Philippines and the other in Thailand
- World Bank integrated social capital into its three key strategic
areas of project operation:
- participation: local participation in project design,
implementation and evaluation ensure that projects and policies make
sense within the local context and fosters the support and ownership
necessary to sustain the project once development workers are gone;
- policy: preserve, promote and invest in social capital, and
fostering cross-sectoral partnerships for development; Promote social
capital research and learning; and
- partnerships: a tri-sectoral partnership (the public,
private and non-profit sectors) to a common goal of “win-win” benefits
across a broad number of projects.
27
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE, SOCIAL CAPITAL AND SHOP
- Private enterprise and social enterprise
- SHOPs: income generating and enterprise activities, some governments’
social enterprise initiatives in poverty alleviation.
- Social enterprise: income generating organizations operated like a
private business but which serves a primary social purpose of supporting
the rights and welfare of disadvantaged groups.
28-31
Affirmative government policies
- Philippines:
- Government allocates 10% of its purchasing budget for chairs and
tables of public schools to cooperatives of persons with disabilities.
Affirmative government policies
- Taiwan Province of China:
- mandatory employment quota system with a levy.
- funds raised from the levy as wage subsidy.
- income subsidy initial job placement up to around 36 months
- government’s purchase budget
- A SHOP from the Philippines
- The cooperatives of PWDs
- Role of the national cooperative body
- Building positive political, social and business networks
- A success story of a local cooperative
- The government and TV campaigns
- Challenges and issues, and ways forward
- A SHOP from Taiwan Province of China
- Background of the selected case
- Business contracts with government, the case of special transport
service
- Sheltered workshop cum business
- Networking with political, social and business leaders
- Challenges and issues
32-34
REFLECTIONS FROM THE TWO CASES
- Both share a common situation, no government funding.
- Both share a common wish, to nurture a sustainable social enterprise
which will in turn support the sustainable development of the mother
bodies.
- dynamic interaction among government affirmative policy, development
agencies, NGO funding bodies, the private sector, with the SHOP as the key
player bridging and linking all interested and concerned sectors
- SHOPs’ active social networks and trust relationship built across all
sectors.
- The high moral value of social enterprises , a disadvantage?
- Social capital investment: critical and strategic for SHOPs
35-38
A COMPREHENSIVE AND PROACTIVE APPROACH TO SUPPORT SOCIAL CAPITAL
DEVELOPMENT FOR SHOPS
- At local and national levels
- At the regional level
- A Regional Tripartite Platform for Sustainable Development:
- to study and improve on affirmative policies in support of social
enterprises in relation to a rapidly changing global economy,
- to identify the kind of businesses at the local level which SHOPs
have a better chance of success in developing into social enterprises,
- to support capacity building programmes for SHOPs at the regional
level through provision of trainers and training packages, particularly
from the business partners, which will best suit dynamic business
operations,
- to facilitate networking of SHOPs at national and local levels with
national branches of multi-national corporations,
- to facility the networking of not for profit development
organizations supported by multi-national corporations with SHOPs in the
development of social enterprises,
39
CONCLUSION
- Opportunities in 2007 during the high-level intergovernmental meeting
organized by ESCAP to review the BMF implementation and to adopt the BMF
plus Five, a supplementary strategy for the later half of the Decade.
40
Thank you
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