” If the United Nations was fully funded why would we need the Arc or social enterprise”?

A common topic in conversation as well as among scholars is the supposed ineffectiveness of the UN, particularly with regard to their inability to properly address systematic issues plaguing certain regions of the world: one must look no further than the lacklustre response to the recent ebola outbreak in West Africa to see why. It is true that some of these problems could be resolved with better funding, but given the all encompassing nature of the UN with regard to global issues, “full funding” is pragmatically impossible, and certain areas in need for intervention are bound to be overlooked. This is where social entrepreneurship comes in. Social enterprises such as the Grameen Bank, which provides microcredit loans to the poorest of the poor based on trust, and without the usurious interest rates that their borrowers would face from loan sharks, rely on the brilliant ideas of their founders to create meaningful change in the world, and do so independently without any bias/funding constraints that might arise from the UN, a politically charged organization. Moving forward, cooperation between the UN and social enterprises will be the key to making our world an ideal place to live for all.