Hello again Charles. Well you can probably guess that where my colleague works in Eastern Europe, our mission location, there are risks and threats. Graft is something he's confronted and said no to and then gone on to condemn the government on Radio Free Europe for their corruption. A risky step where a journalist has recently been beheaded for researching corruption.

http://eng.maidanua.org/node/331

Yes, we are at risk and as you know from our previous dialogue, there's a very strong possibility that funds as well as information resources have been deployed against us.

Of more concern to me right now is our UK government who recently embraced the concept of business helping meet the MDGs. So now, there's an HIV epidemic at the doorstep of Europe and in 4 years of trying to get support from them for the same concept, $250 million has been deployed unsuccessfully.

I find no other strategy, nobody in government or the cross-party special interest groups will communicate. So it comes to this, petitioning our Prime Minister to support the kind of business for which the MDGs are primary objectives.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/marshall-plan/ e

Thanks, Jeff:

Your post reminds me of Colin Turnbull's two books. I read The Forest People, about the pygmies of the Ituri forest, and found the book itself conveyed their immense joy in life very convincingly, so that it was a joy to read. I could hardly wait to read his The Mountain People - about the Ik, who live in the high mountains of Uganda.

After world War II, these people, who had previously hunted across a wide swath of territory, found themselves excluded from major parts of their ancestral hunting grounds by the borders of newly self-aware nation-states. Survival became a problem so difficult that social bonds dissolved and it became everyone for him/herself - so the saying "he'd steal the food right off his own mother's plate" could be used to describe not just the single sociopath but an entire society.

It was the most depressing book I'd read - and it left an indelible mark.

Now, I see all human societies as situated on a slope, with the joy and generosity of the Ituri at the top, and the desperation and grasping of the Ik at the bottom, and realize that our gestures, one at a time, lift us or lower us towards one end or the other.

"In my childhood, you could (x), but nowadays you'd think that was crazy."

I'm always on the lookout for sentences that go like that, because they tell me how we're doing on the Ituri-to-Ik slope. "In my childhood, you could leave the front door open, nobody would come into your house and steal anything

but not today, not where I live."

It sounds as thogh the Ukraine is at "condition Ik". And that's a self-perpetuating situation, very very difficult to break.

Charles, i think your Ik analogy is fair comment for many parts of the world where the population is co-opted into a pyramid of corruption. It means any and every authorisation to act carries a price, right down to paying for a graduation certificate. It's not unfamiliar to others I talk to in South American countries. He who takes the first step, sticks his neck out and yet people are beginning to do so. Not least a young man we've met named Albert who is the first to speak out on the conspiracy of silence over what goes on inside care homes for disabled kids.

Such things go with the territory and we expect to meet adversaries who would rather these things are not known about.

What concerns me more is the obstacles we find among our own, the state and stage management of social enterprise, on which someone sent me a paper recently, which struck a chord.

http://yunusphere.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/the-case-against-social-enterprise-05.pdf

Imagine this. There were risks and costs involved in our activism and strategic advocacy which raised awareness of an HIV epidemic at our doorstep. Now there's acknowledgement from the UN, I can deduce from scouring our Hansard record of parliament that this news takes our own country by surprise. That where we are refused support or ignored, preferred insiders are granted millions and don't have much to show for it.

This can be more harmful, since corrupt business will generally go no further in obstruction than it finds to be cost effective. Where political status is involved there's no limit because the cost is on us.

I love the analogy of the wet blanket!

I've seen a few examples recently here in the US:

• eConsciousMarket.com tells how goverment was their biggest barrier to starting their radical business model; for example: "the corporate limitation on charitable contributions is set at 10%", so they had problems simply setting up their company.
• Mohammad Yunus points out that "there is more regulation, so a person cannot just set up a cart and sell cakes without a permit."
• Further from Yunus: "Rules for setting up a bank are cumbersome for a micro-operation."

http://effectivesociety.blogspot.com/search/label/government_evils

Admittedly, these are nothing compared to the direct government problems that Jeff Mowatt reports. I feel very lucky in my part of the world.

But here we do have increasing problems with complication and regulation which makes innovation more difficult (eg. strong "intellectual property" laws). And more than just being a wet blanket on independent efforts, even worse is the fact that people are starting to rely on the government for most types of charity, both for receiving and for giving. This is separating us from each other. The strongest societies of the next generation are going to be the ones that have built strong, adaptive extended families and communities.

The combination of Yunus as source and "Rules for setting up a bank are cumbersome for a micro-operation" as statement is potent to my way of thinking.

*

It may be weird of me to say so, but I'm somewhat perversely reminded of that terrific speech by Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons where he expresses his gratitude for the laws of England, not because they are just or righteous but because they set up barriers to the untrammeled exercise of bullying and brutality:

QUOTE: This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - Man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down ... d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake. :UNQUOTE

Regulations - damned if you do, damned if you don't, it seems to me.

So the question becomes: how do we balance regulation with flexibility?

Particularly when the powers that be may have a vested interest in rem aining inflexible?

*

Sorry to make this so abstract. Both Jeff's situation, horrific as it is, and Yunus' comment, poignant indeed piercing in its implications, concern me greatly.

Let's keep talking.

Interesting quote! I understand the following riposte is found on a plaque in our Statue of Liberty: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I, too, am greatly concerned about the effect of government interference as we try to lift up one another; however, I'm surprised to find that most people do not share my fears... just like I'm surprised to see very little discussion on this topic. That makes me look harder at the situation and my opinions.

Thankfully, I see more and more evidence (eg. this organization!) that shows that people are putting their lives and time to great purposes, working around the interference rather than constantly distressing about the situation... :- )

Hi Trent.

I'm not sure whether Ben Franklin is disagreeing with Thomas More, or whether they're addressing different enough situations to invalidate a direct opposition between them - but I very much appreciate your bringing the Franklin quote to bear on the quote from More, and have used the pair of them in one of my DoubleQuotes at http://tinyurl.com/4bwt75 .

I've been surprised by how little comment this item has stirred, too - I'm wondering if, perhaps, the range from bureaucratic snafu to death threats and war zones makes some people think their problems are too "small" to be worth talking about.

I hope more people will realize that whatever gets in the way is worth discussion, from lack of access to coffee or reliable modems on up...

I mentioned "lack of coffee and modems" just now - I should of course have prefaced those words with "government-influenced" to keep us on topic here!

In the fall of 2004, during negotiations on the FY 2005 City of Kalamazoo budget, a group of concerned citizens appeared at a city commission meeting to protest the proposed closing of a city park in their neighborhood. The commissioners decided to restore the $2200 to the Parks and Recreation budget. Since then, the City of Kalamazoo, Parks and Recreation Director, and administration officials have become active partners with the Friends of Woods Lake, a coalition of nearby neighborhood associations and city-wide residents. We are collaborating with another citizens group who are working to upgrade another city park, and have a combined fundraising goal of $1.7M. This is an example of positive engagement with local government, that started out as a confrontation. gw

Thanks, Gary, for the positive note you've brought to this discussion. From Jeff's colleague's troubles in Eastern Europe to your group's exemplary progress in Kalamazoo, the range of social innovator to government interactions this topic covers is enormous.

Way to go!

Charles, you raise a set of interesting and important questions, many of which we address in our Public Innovators initiative: www.publicinnovators.com. Through our work we’ve found that government can be both an enemy and an ally.

For example, there are times when government regulation, certifications, and consumer laws – all designed to protect the general population – seriously impede a social entrepreneur’s ability to achieve maximum impact. ITNAmerica, a Maine-based organization that uses donated cars to provide transportation to senior citizens, encountered “red tape” in state laws that categorize any entity receiving and selling a certain number of cars per year as a used car dealership. Founder Katherine Freund needed government to “get out of the way” so she could grow her model. In partnership with state legislators, she was able to lift this ‘used car dealership’ label from state law and grant her clever and incredibly effective solution the freedom to expand.

However, there are many ways that government involvement with social entrepreneurs can be very beneficial, helping to bring attention and resources to models that are working and to seed and replicate these solutions in other areas where a similar need exists. Together with the Aspen Institute, we’ve recently published the paper "Advancing Social Entrepreneurship" with 13 recommendations for policy makers and government agencies wishing to foster a more conducive environment for social problem solving. We think you will find them very relevant to this conversation: www.publicinnovators.com/resources/publications.

Also, be sure to visit Root Cause CEO and Advancing SE author Andrew Wolk’s blog entitled "Government Engagement", here on Social Edge.

Hi Colleen:

And thanks. Once again, I find myself with my reading cut out for me

it's one pf the delights and frustrations of my online life that there's so much of importance to read!

Two quick hits on the topic of "reaching" decisionmakers:

One is that we need to get up to speed on concept-mapping and visual data display, and put more of our thought into diagrams, if we're to convey some of the complexities of multi-stakeholder realities and complex problems across - the white paper turns only too easily into the executive summary, which becomes an "answer" or even a soundbite - when what's really needed is a nuanced understanding of the question in context.

The other point is that we need decision-makers (and funding organizations) who are willing to hear the needs of workers in the field, in ways that facilitate and do not overwhelm those workers. I get the impression from occasional references here on SE that funding sources in particular (what to speak of government agencies requisitioning bids for work) tend to formulate their procedures and applications formalities in a way that makes life difficult for the small, insightful, dedicated solvers of one small, crucial, human problem...

But all that's my personal concern, and I certainly don't wish to imply we're not making progress! Distributed networking demands flexibility and listening on both ends of a wide range of communications, and we're clearly moving into a distributed networking age. It seems to me like a natural - not to say inevitable - evolution!

Thanks again.

Dear Charles

As usual you facilitate a great topic and one that is very close to my heart.

Being in Africa, where bribery and corruption are the order of the day, not to mention that crime and violence are part and parcel of our day-to-day living your topic brings to the fore a very serious concern that we are constantly facing and one that is not exclusive to govermental circles but prevallent also in the corporate world driven as well by the so called "political appointments" that takes place regularly.

The way I look at it, and have experienced it all my life is that the question is not about goverments or corporates but rather about people's behaviour and value systems being distorted towards self-enrichment and power plays.

In South Africa, we are experiencing an increase in violence, and we are seeing the condonation and support of crime by the lack of leadership of the South African goverment leaders. (all we need to do is to analyse their behaviour during the serious xenophobia crisis facing South Africa at present, the situation in Zimbabwe which is out of hand with millions being displaced, killed or slowly dying of starvation while the world sits by and watches)

The problem is that "PEOPLE" are becoming disensatised to crime, corruption, crime and violent death! It has became "the norm" ... and is being accepted by the vast majority as the only way to "survive" as a result of fear for their own lives and those of their loved ones.

Gosh, sometimes I feel that the world is on the way of loosing its battle with corruption and greed.

Laurinda Seabra

1. August2008

Hello everbody!

My name is Francis Osorio and I have a social enterprise operating out of northern Mindanao in the Philippines. In the Philippines, we not only have corruption but also graft as well. They are actually two different things. Corruption is bribery, i.e. paying government officals money to get what you want. Graft is when lawmakers make the laws to benefit themselves to the detriment of others. Operating under this environment is very frustrating and also very expensive for business operations. For example, it is cheaper for me to ship one 40-foot container to the U.S.A. (which is half-way around the world from where I am) than for me to ship the same 40 foot container to Manila which is only 500 kilometers away. Cost of corruption is about 25 per cent of my operatiing expenses. Therefore, I have to factor in a gross profit margin of 37 per cent and I would be happy if in the end I would get a net profit of 10 to 12 per cent for all my hard efforts.

I live in this climate and you are right: People can become insensitive to the realities of graft and corruption to the point of acceptance. And what is even more frustrating is that graft and corruption can become a whole culture. And how do you eradicate a whole culture? The change process would need at least a whole generation or even two or three generations of people. This is for sure. But at least we have to begin this change. I personally do not hope to see this change in my lifetime nor in my children's lifetime but perhaps in my grandchildren's lifetime, there could be a possibility. I am not even sure. But I know I just have to keep on working.

Yes, they are called Microfinance Banks. What else would you expect?

I share the same concern by very few critics from Nigeria, of recent extreme conditions given by most Microfinance Bank operators for accessing micro loan. The interest rates charged are at an all time very high owing to the transaction cost or management cost borne by the MFIs.

Is this really true? partially I think. to be frank, MFIs in Nigeria are really out for business and have to meet up with a lot of demands from the Investors that have pooled funds together to help them scale through the pressure of meeting up with the CBN capital base requirement. Pure capitalists release funds for only one reason; FAT return on Investment. How do we now think MFBs focus won't drastically change?

To be sincere, reducing or figting poverty with the tool called Microfinancing can be very true with the success recorded by many other Asian and North American countries, but we need to check the fundamental factor of having to attend to the poor with Gun beside your Ears approach. Microfinancing should be borne with passion to cause a change rather than for profit. While profiting is the best way to measure growth and success, MFIs in Africa needs more institutional and foreign supports at this stage to overcome this Doing Good for Wrong reason!

Maybe the Central Bank of Nigeria shouldn't have called it Microfinance Bank in the first place!

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