Navkriti Issue 1

prise movement offers an alternative to the
snail’s pace of institutional change for cynics
who want to change the world for the better.
As such, for any
social entrepreneur
to be successful,
he/she
should have the
drive and the
vision to be a
success. Along
with that he/she
will also need
certain elements
to be in place,
such as the infrastructure
of
the country and
the structure of
the government.
Even the most
innovative ideas
can go only so
far without functional
governments
and the
infrastructure
needed for the
same.
These two factors
become
even more important
in developing
countries.
For instance, a
country in which
the government
is poor, incompetent
or corrupt
and there
can be policies
or under-hand practices that may hinder the
progress of entrepreneurs looking to change
the world. On the other hand, a flawed education
system, poor health care services and
poor infrastructure are all the result of a
poor government. In spite of all the work
done by social
entrepreneurs,
they still cannot
replace the
State’s role or
function nearly
as effectively in
counties where
such regressive
conditions exist.
Of course there
are exceptions
to this , like the
case of
‘Grameen Bank’.
Muhammad
Yunus, founder
of ‘Grameen
Bank’ and the
father of micro
credit provides
an apt example
of social entrepreneurship.
He
discovered that
the poor in
Bangladesh
found it difficult
to procure even
the tiniest
amounts of
credit, because
they could not
qualify for loans
through the formal
banking system
or they
could not afford
to borrow from local moneylenders who
charged exorbitant rates of interest. He,
therefore challenged the existing system and
Navkriti
22