Since 1945, the United Nations has devoted tens of millions of donations to mitigating global problems like poverty, homelessness and famine. In the short term, those financial supports have indeed alleviated some urgent problems; however, in the long term, the problems still exist because the essence of the problems does not change. Donations, no matter how much, could only have limited impacts on the issues and might even deteriorate the current situation if the recipients do not know how to utilize them in an efficient way.

Arc Initiative and social entrepreneurs provide us with a new and more effective way to solve the global problems. Arc Initiative shares essential business toolkits and experience with people who want to start their own business but do not have enough knowledge about entrepreneurship. On the other hand, social entrepreneurs create shared value to help the local community attain sustainable development. For example, Grameen Bank, run by Muhammad Yunus, provides micro-loan to poor people who do not have enough credits to borrow money from big banks to start their business. With this assistant, those entrepreneurs find a way to get rid of poverty. In turn, the development of those small businesses increases employment opportunities in the local community, which propels the local economy to grow in the long-run.

The key point of the two methodologies is to help people how to help themselves. So when we want to help people to achieve sustainable development in the future, this should be a key thing that we need to consider.

source:

http://skollworldforum.org/about/what-is-social-entrepreneurship/

http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/Global_Reach/ARC_Initiative/About_ARC