Social Entrepreneurship Summary

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The book offers a short, general introduction to social entrepreneurship. The subject spans so much activity today that no small book can adequately cover it. But the authors have tried to address a broad range of questions and point the way for further exploration. The result reflects their biases, which include shared exposures to the field of microfinance in Bangladesh and to the work of Ashoka and hundreds of social entrepreneurs in its fellowship. From the authors’ vantage point, they have exerted a dominant influence on the global field of social entrepreneurship. Others may place emphasis elsewhere. The book is divided in three main parts: Defining Social Entrepreneurship, Challenges of Causing Change, and Envisioning an Innovating…show more content…
Before, heading there, the book first talked about the background during the time social entrepreneurship was pioneered. Groundbreaking examples of social entrepreneurship occurred in one of the poorest countries in the world which was Bangladesh. Cyclone and war of independence left the country ravaged. Five Hundred people died from the Bhola Cyclone. In the war of independence, the Pakistani army raped hundreds of thousands of girls and women and caused deaths of more than a million. Starvation and diseases such as Cholera and typhoid took the lives of up to two million more. Ten million refugees fled to India. This generated outrage and sympathy on a global scale. Wealthy countries gave assistance by donating funds and such, but the problem is large amounts of free money will almost always produce corruption, which actually happened. Large amounts of foreign aid have ended up enriching the elites and an estimate of only ten to twenty reached the poor. Foreign aid keep coming until it represented Bangladesh’s ninety percent development budget. Billions were spent on projects—agriculture development, road construction, and electricity generation—that were prioritized by foreign donors and made sense on paper but often fell apart on the ground or produced benefits that bypassed the poor. The legacy of this aid is a culture of dependency and corruption that continues to distort Bangladesh’s economy and government. However, foreign aid did give some highly positive changes in Bangladesh when it was deployed. local social entrepreneurs founded a business to help finance—but not to control—citizen organizations. The two most famous examples are “The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee” and The “Grameen Bank” also known as the “Village Bank”. After the war of independence, Bangladeshis all over the world abandoned their lucrative jobs to help rebuild the country. Fazle H. Abed and Muhammad

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