Children in Indian slum. billycm used under CC0 Creative Commons
This month the LSE IQ podcast tackles the question, ‘Could social entrepreneurship be the answer to world poverty?’
Social entrepreneurship takes the methods and energy of business entrepreneurship and applies them to often intractable social, or environmental, problems. Social enterprises hold the promise of developing financially sustainable solutions and of providing dignity, rather than just charity, for those they seek to help.
Over the last couple of decades Western aid agencies, the World Bank, NGOs and business schools have all enthusiastically embraced this approach. But can it effectively alleviate poverty?
Helping to answer the question are: Dr Christian Busch, researcher in the LSE Innovation Co-Creation Lab; Stephan Chambers, Director of the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship; Dr Jason Hickel, Fellow in the Department of Anthropology and Dr Juli Huang, Lecturer in Anthropology of Development at The University of Edinburgh.
Each episode of LSE IQ sees a range of LSE academics, and other experts, line up to give their perspective on one timely question. For all episodes of LSE IQ, and to subscribe on iTunes and SoundCloud, please visit lse.ac.uk/iq or search for 'LSE IQ' in your favourite podcast app.