GSIF09 Plenary 9 | Summaries

Saturday, 3 October

• Ashoke Joshi • HE Paul Madden • Zainudin Nordin • Graham Paterson • Aashmi Rana

Moderated by • Michael Yeoh

While one panelist pointed out that social entrepreneurship is still at its infancy in Singapore, there are many lessons to be drawn from countries such as Australia and the UK.
In Australia, for example, one organization has focused on building relationships with the indigenous population. This population has no natural economy, and thus social entrepreneurship is the only way for them to empower themselves.
In the UK, social entrepreneurship has taken off for a long time, and this is made possible with the existence of a civic society, supportive government and healthy, vibrant media.
Patience and credibility are needed for survival and success of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). NGOs need to be rigorous in analyzing societal problems and matching employees’ and volunteers’ skills with the needs of the communities.
NGOs must also ensure that the communities do not become too dependent on them and they themselves must not be too reliant on one particular source of funding.
Furthermore, NGOs have to continually build capabilities and capacity, and this can be realized by engaging in tri-sector collaborations. In this instance, the “three-legged stool metaphor” can be applied.
Lastly, market efficiency has to be introduced to NGOs, which need to become semi-incorporated of sorts to ensure their survival and that duplication of efforts will not occur as that means wastage of resources.