Social enterprises and decreasing vulnerability

Europe and CIS

The issue in the framework of UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre’s priorities

Europe and CIS

Outline

What is BRC doing Approach to vulnerability Why economy is seen as appropriate for

decreasing vulnerability? Next steps

Europe and CIS

BRC architecture and territorial coverage Three thematic dimensions (“practices”) with set of sub-

practices Democratic governance Environmental Poverty

HD, MDGs and poverty monitoring (with social inclusion increasingly gaining in significance)

Civil society engagement for poverty alleviation MDG support Private business engagement, UN Secretary General Global Compact

Initiative Poverty reduction and trade

Cross-cutting areas Gender ICT HIV/AIDS

Country support team

Europe and CIS

Why involved in the RBEC region? Major challenges

Strong core-periphery disparities ‘Working poor’ phenomenon Unreformed social services Old industrialized regions (depressive

urban areas) Single-factory towns poverty Rural poverty Increase in inequality Emergence of visible of “losers” of

transition (“vulnerable groups”)

Europe and CIS

Why involved in the region? Increase in inequality

Gini coefficient increase during transition

0.060

0.054

0.009

0.105

0.023

0.124

0.183

0.179

0.131

0.046

0.123

0.118

0.091

0.174

0.081

0.189

0.084

0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.200 0.250 0.300 0.350 0.400 0.450 0.500

Czech Republic

Hungary

Belarus

Bulgaria

Slovakia

Romania

Armenia

Moldova

Latvia

Lithuania

Kyrgyzstan

FYR Macedonia

Poland

Georgia

Estonia

Tajikistan

Serbia and Montenagro

1989 orclosestavailable

Increase in2004 orclosest

Europe and CIS

Approach to vulnerability – who are vulnerable?

Group affiliation Roma? IDPs? Women? Youth?

Individual status dimension Disabled Pre-retirement age unemployed Long-term unemployed Level of education, qualification Single parents

Functional dimension Isolation (inaccessible social and physical environment) Access (lack of) to basic infrastructures

Europe and CIS

Dealing with vulnerability – addressing…

Poverty and the risk of falling into poverty (not just monetary)

Lack of educational opportunities Inadequate personal (physical) security, Poor housing Poor access to health care Closely related to the concept of ‘human

security’ (security beyond security of nation-states’ borders)

Europe and CIS

Closer look at HD and HS perspective to vulnerability

Vulnerability as a set of: Socio-economic risks (household dimension) Personal risks (individual dimension) Environmental risks (territorial and spatial

dimension) Vulnerability as capacity deficits to:

identify and avoid threats Identify group-specific and factor-specific

instruments to attenuate their consequences

Europe and CIS

Social enterprises as an instrument to address vulnerability Entities sharing characteristics of business and NGO/CSO

sector Main objective – achieving social goals and not profit (NGO

‘face’) Major instrument for reaching the objective – operation

following business models Dual role of the ‘target group’:

Active participants Major client

Particularly suitable for excluded groups Different from:

Market providers of social services Entities distributing social assistance

Europe and CIS

Unlike targeted “group approach”, social enterprises can Target the assistance and increase both its

effectiveness and efficiency Provide wide range of ‘positive externalities’ Actively involve the communities Decrease ‘free riders’ perception and thus improve

social cohesion Decrease dependency Decrease overall costs of addressing vulnerability and

social inclusion Be ‘group neutral’ and open to various vulnerable

groups Falls into EC priority work on “social economy”

Europe and CIS

Why social enterprises for vulnerable groups? The Roma…

Social inclusion of Roma faces problems despite the plethora of initiatives? Because of the plethora of initiatives?

Policies so far contributing to dependence ‘Capacity’ of the stakeholders rarely being developed Strong corporate interests involved in ‘Roma inclusion’ vulnerability-based approach necessary – targeting

Roma because they are vulnerable and not because they are Roma

Social enterprises can be helpful to decrease dependency and social distance

Europe and CIS

The current project

A regional initiative launched by BRC in 2006 to assess the feasibility and practice of Social Enterprises in NMS, the Western Balkans, and the CIS

Set of national studies in a regional framework

Common denominator – post-socialist specifics of the “third sector”

Country specifics – address nationally-relevant challenges regarding vulnerability and social inclusion

Europe and CIS

The regional component…

Introduces regionally adequate definitions of social enterprises Estimates contributions of social enterprises to the process of social

inclusion (both from a social and economic point of view) Suggests criteria for measurement (three economic and three social

criteria). Economic:

An economic activity producing goods and/or selling services A degree of autonomy A trend towards paid work

Social: An explicit aim to benefit the community or a specific group of people Decision-making power not based on capital ownership Exclusion of profit-maximising organizations

Europe and CIS

The future perspectives

Within this particular project Future support to legal frameworks (in Poland and Serbia) Launch of publication in Barcelona Project Development based on findings

Broader framework Constituting “social economy” as a programmatic area of

BRC Integrating the work on supporting social economy into

overall vulnerability-targeted endeavors Linking social enterprises to social inclusion monitoring

(sets of indicators, monitoring frameworks)