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When I first heard about a new social business making bamboo products setting up in the small EPZ far in the north of Bangladesh at Nilphamari, I was so excited.   In a country where there is really very little ‘luxury’ shopping - shopping for things you want rather than those you need - the idea that we might soon have a range of bamboo based home items to buy was thrilling.

For some months there was talk about this project set up by the UK charity Oasis (www.oasisglobal.org) but set up as an independent social business and yet talk about the products was very scarce.   It was in December 2009 when I first heard they would be producing coffins!

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For all those vibrant social enterpreneurs in Bangladesh who know they can make a difference and know that poverty can be beaten.    Here’s your chance to take part in a four-day strategic and problem solving retreat.   Please check it out at http://opportunitycollaboration.net/pre/fellowships/

Send your fellowship applications to the email address on the Opportunity Collaboration website.

What will be the defining points for Bangladesh social business in 2010?    I’m going to hedge my bets and suggest that mobile internet is where we will see enormous growth.

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At the Global Economic Symposium (GES) in Germany a couple of months ago, Bill Young, President of Social Capital Partners, Canada, came up with the idea that making existing scaled businesses more social could be much more effective and efficient in changing the world than by creating new purpose build social businesses.   There would be very clear benefits for Bangladesh if this were to happen and the article I’ve written for the Daily Star explains specifically how.   http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=113094    I’m also copying the whole text into this blog post because I feel that the subject is so significant as a possible poverty reduction strategy in Bangladesh.

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Whilst I am the moderator of this blog, I am also a practising social entrepreneur and CEO of a social business Hathay Bunano in Bangladesh.   Now I find myself in the odd position of writing about myself

I attended the Clinton Global Initiative last week and presented a commitment to action along with 3 partners, IFC-SEDF, Tullow Bangladesh Ltd and UNHCR to create employment for 2000 women in 3 areas of rural Bangladesh over the next 12 months.   The commitment was identified as ‘exemplary’ by the CGI.   The commitment was described to the conference and I was invited onto the stage to meet President Clinton.   He thanked me sincerely for my work creating rural employment for the very poor in Bangladesh.

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Bangladesh is one of the lowest consumers of energy in the world.   The national grid reaches only 35% of the population.   In recent years there has been a boom in wind power in India and the Indian government has made the technology available to entrepreneurs and then ensured both linkage to the national grid and sale of supply.  Bangladesh has a coastline which stretches 710km which is ideal for wind farms so why are we so slow to realise the potential of this source of power?

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When I first learnt that there were refugees in Bangladesh, I was rather surprised.   Why on earth would anyone escape to a country as poor as Bangladesh?   Clearly that tells you what the situation was like back home.   Whilst there are refugee camps in Bangladesh housing about 27,000 refugees, mainly Rohingas, there are also tens of thousands living within the local communities, unregistered and without help.   

I want to include here a story from UNHCR on a new social business by the Chin community.   It’s in its early stages and definitely a work in progress but surely an indication of the ability of social business to solve the problems of the world.  http://www.unhcr.org/4aae591914.html     The full text is also printed below.

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Anyone who knows anything about me knows my passion for co-operation and collaboration.   I’ve just seen so many times that by working together we can achieve so much more than when we isolate ourselves.    In Bangladesh, the lack of co-operation has on many occasions left me frustrated but maybe now the tide is turning and we are starting to learn that together we are so much stronger.

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At the end of July I attended the BEI workshop on social business, funded by DFID, and listened to Dr R Sobhan discuss the Grameen / Danone social business.    Dr Sobhan raised some interesting points and I’d like to just recount some of the discussion here.   The joint venture was conceived to bring high nutrient food at low cost to the rural poor.   Danone has the experience of creating yoghurt and Grameen has the links with many millions of rural poor Bangladeshis.   The yoghurt would be produced with nutrients added and sold rurally at very low cost to benefit the rural poor children.   Yunus strongly believes that social business must be non-profit and so this venture was set up in this way, with any potential profits to be re-invested.   So what was the point that Dr Sobhan was making?

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I spent this morning at the workshop of the Bangladesh Social Enterprise project (BSEP) arranged by the Bangladesh Enterprise Initiative (BEI) and financed by DFID.   Dr Rehman Sobhan, Chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) described in detail the Grameen and Brac models of social business and largely compared the company structures.

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