Thousands of social enterprises are grappling directly and sensitively with the pandemic. Governments should support them better, argues Catalyst 2030
Graphic from “Getting from crisis to systems change” report
A/UK has a long-standing interest in the power of advanced social enterprises - taking the best techniques from state, market and civil society, and composing them into highly effective “fourth sector” organisations.
In that spirit, A/UK has been recently contributing to the work of Catalyst 2030 - in their words, “a network of NGOs, social enterprises, intermediaries, funders and other social change innovators, collaborating in this urgent moment to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).” (We’ve covered the SDGs often here).
In the last few weeks Catalyst 2030 has brought out their post-COVID report, Getting from crisis to systems change (download PDF here). It’s a mighty trumpet-call. They urge governments and adminstrations—often stumbling and improvising in their response to the pandemic—to recognise the enormous diversity of solutions, close to the point of need, that social enterprises can bring to this crisis (and those that run alongside it).
The document is packed with great ideas, initiatives and interesting-looking outfits (see those curious Alternative UK people on page 30), which we urge you to read. But the executive summary is a well-written sweep across Catalyst 2030’s ambitions:
Written a few months into unarguably the most severe global crisis since World War 2, this report is a call for leaders to seize this moment as an opportunity for transformational systems change.
As they deploy trillions of dollars and make new laws and demands of the public that will have massive long-term consequences for us all, they must do so in ways that ensure the world emerges from this crisis on a better path than it was on before.
However tempting it may seem, no one should fool themselves that it will be enough merely to try to “get back to normal”.
The truth is, even before this crisis, normal wasn’t working. Normal was an unjust, unequal and unsustainable world whose deep flaws contributed directly to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and to the extraordinarily high social and economic costs of containing it.
Normal was a situation in which, only five years after the governments of 193 countries committed to achieve by 2030 the UN Sustainable Development Goals, we were already decades behind schedule to fulfil that vision of a just, inclusive and environmentally healthy world.
This is an optimistic report, brimming with positive ideas and recommendations that can transform this crisis into an historic turning point, a catalyst for building a much better world.
It is a report written by an alliance of thousands of social entrepreneurs, innovators who partner with the people worst served by our current systems to make changes that unleash social progress.
In this present crisis, many of us are engaged on the frontlines, battling alongside vulnerable communities to beat the pandemic, copewith its wide-ranging consequences and find a path to a future we can all feel good about:
delivering essential protective personal equipment to community health workers in poor African neighbourhoods, and training them about COVID-19 via their cell phones
providing online educational courses to children suddenly unable to go to school
helping smallholder farmers survive the disruption of the food supply chains that provide them with a livelihood
supporting women and girls whose hard won progress is threatened by unemployment, domestic abuse and the reduction in maternal healthcare as health systems prioritise COVID-19 patients
figuring out how to sustainably reinvent a tourism industry devastated by the economic lockdown
standing up for victims of institutionalised racism who in many countries are bearing a disproportionate share of the pandemic burden; social entrepreneurs are there.
We have earned the trust of many millions of people who have been failed by the world’s existing systems and now have little or no trust in its leaders. Now, more than ever, as they take so many hugely consequential decisions, those leaders need to hear our voice and act on our advice.
We launched Catalyst 2030 in January at the World Economic Forum, bringing together the world’s leading networks of proven social entrepreneurs to more clearly and loudly speak truth to power.
The COVID-19 crisis has greatly increased the urgency of our mission. In the past three months, we have brought together more than 4,000 social entrepreneurs representing over 1600 organisations in the discussions and working groups that have produced the ideas and recommendations set out in this report.
Recommendation 1: World leaders must commit to systems change.
Our headline recommendation is that, in their various high level gatherings in the months ahead, world leaders must make an unequivocal commitment to use their responses to this crisis to change our systems for the better.
They must back up this promise in their actions, especially how they deploy trillions of dollars to address the pandemic’s social and economic consequences.
Too often crises are prolonged and opportunities to catalyse positive change wasted, because valuable resources are used to shore up the failed system, rather than replace it with something better. We cannot afford to make that mistake again.
As this report makes clear, many of the ideas needed to bring about systems change have already been tested and proven on the ground by social entrepreneurs and our partner communities. The challenge now is not so much invention, as implementing on a massive scale innovation we know work.
Recommendation 2: Social entrepreneurs should have a seat at the decision-making table.
Several of our recommendations aim at making it easier for the world’s large-scale decision-making and funding institutions to tap into our expertise and proven solutions.
At high level meetings where leaders debate and decide what path to take out of this crisis, there should be a seat at the table reserved for social entrepreneurs.
Our voice, and that of the vulnerable communities who trust us to represent them, needs to be heard in the rooms where decisions happen.
Recommendation 3: Governments and other major institutions should create highlevel one stop points of contact for social entrepreneurs.
Governments and other institutions that make decisions and deploy resources should also create “one stop” contact points for social entrepreneurs to bring forward their innovations.
Often the systems change ideas of social entrepreneurs cut across existing organisational silos, which makes it hard for them to move forward. The one stop points of contact need to be located at the highest level of an organisation, ideally in the office of its most senior leader, so they can be viewed through a holistic, joined up, un-siloed lens and their full benefits seen.
Recommendation 4: Governments, companies, philanthropists and others must transform how they finance the ideas of social entrepreneurs.
We also set out several ideas for getting more money, more efficiently to innovative solutions that have been proven to make a difference on the ground. We are alarmed by the evidence we see.
Despite trillions of dollars being deployed in emergency responses to the pandemic and economic slump, very little of it is reaching social entrepreneurs and the social sector as a whole, which are facing severe cutbacks just as they are needed more than ever. It is time for a step-change increase in total funding of the social sector.
Lastly, we set out dozens of ideas produced by Catalyst 2030 working groups. These are innovative solutions to specific challenge. They range from
strategies for helping people whose mental health is suffering during the crisis to job creating schemes for artisanal workers;
new data analytical tools to help predict vulnerability to the virus or safely reopen locked down economies;
ways to use this crisis to crackdown on corruption or strengthen efforts to reduce tax avoidance by multinational companies;
and there are ideas for ensuring that this crisis advances (rather than delays) efforts to tackle the even bigger crisis looming over us - climate change.
Many of these ideas are already proven or can easily be made “shovel ready” and we are continuing to work 24/7 on developing the rest. We are here and ready to serve.
This crisis is demanding a great deal from our leaders. We do not envy them their present responsibilities and choices. But history will judge the decisions they take now. This report makes it clear that this crisis is an opportunity to tackle deep systemic failures and end historic injustices and inequalities.
We call on our leaders to seize this chance to put the world on track for the inclusive and sustainably prosperous future we all desire.