” If the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?
The UN is a global institute that promotes international cooperation. The UN funds humanitarian aid to less economically developed countries (LEDCs) to help develop infrastructure to improve standards of living. The 10 millennium development goal is a long term project that strives towards eradicating poverty and promoting basic human rights and gender equality. However, there are shortcomings to all the great things that the UN does.
The UN is a massive organization and provides a very diverse range of services to countries. This can be seen as one of the shortcomings because unlike social enterprises, they’re not focused enough to help specific groups in need consistently. Most humanitarian aids given are one time payments that are semi-regular. Aid for development is often needed as a long term investment and social enterprises are able to devote that attention needed.
Secondly, sadly, financial aid given by the UN goes to the government of the LEDCs, which is prone to corruption. There is no guarantee that 100% of the funding will reach where it needs to be. Social enterprises are direct givers to the communities.
Social enterprises are fundamentally businesses, so the better they do, more social aspects are improved. After watching many videos on the skoll foundation playlist from the recommended reading, it has opened my eyes to a different side of business, one that I seem to prefer. Social enterprises aren’t necessarily profit driven and furthermore, they are very innovative and can use their on technology to help those in need.
Articles:
http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/
http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Global_Reach/ARC_Initiative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkGBlclgwaE&list=PL9F69D01868AEDD4E (watch)
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_porter_why_business_can_be_good_at_solving_social_problems?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=ted&utm_medium=on.ted.com-static&awesm=on.ted.com_Porter&utm_content=awesm-publisher (watch twice)