Top-down? Bottom-up? Or What's The Point of Arguing?

I believe I'll hardly raise eyebrows if I claim top-down approach doesn't exist in the dictionary of social entrepreneurship. Bottom-up approach is the automatic choice by virtue of its emphasis on engagement with grassroots communities and co-creation of solutions to tackle poverty. It's supposed to yield deeper understanding of community needs, constraints, and effective strategies to tackle real issues. I think I lost count of articles that portray failures of top-down development projects, they are rendered 'inherently ineffective'.

The question is: Is it even possible to do such seemingly academic classification with clear-cut qualities? In reality, aren't development projects that actively seek feedback from grassroots communities and co-develop solutions (bottom-up) eventually leading to organizations to take full ownership in implementing the strategy (top-down)? Depending on how we argue on definition, bottom-up approach might mirror effective top-down approach.

We acknowledge development projects are complex, but how frequent are we making simplistic attribution that projects fail because of top-down approach? Did we ever study bottom-up approach that fails? The point is that effective solutions may blend top-down and bottom-up approach to leverage on respective strengths. When you think about the analogy in framing Aid vs. Market debates, we encounter the same unproductive ideological arguments that mislead us into thinking it has to be either one but not both, when practitioners are already actively blending both to innovate new solutions and opportunities.

Instead of cherry-picking evidence to narrowly prove which one is better, why don't we examine and understand more in situations where top-down approach is necessary and critical characteristics in which it can be deployed effectively? I don't think we should miss the synergy in blending top-down and bottom-up approach, perhaps before we give a bashing to top-down approach next time, give deeper thoughts.

Rural Women in BoP Supply Chain

Initiatives that prepare rural women to become sales agents or distributors are growing, from early but now obsolete effort in selling mobile talk time, to present initiatives in selling solar lanterns, sanitary napkins and a wide range of consumer products, the opportunities can continue to grow.

As long as product needs and desires are identified in rural communities, there may be opportunities to include women in sales and distribution with basic training and resources. We call them women entrepreneurs. Irrespective of what products are being sold, the goals are to give them jobs, raise their income level, enhance their skills and give them a renewed sense of confidence to work. Indeed those are well intentioned initiatives, but what evidence is available to compare their progress against their original goals and poverty alleviation?

Even if demands are tangible and communities are willing to pay, it's impossible to claim that such initiatives work well with sales data alone. So far, there is really no hard evidence to show that the income source can be sustainable and the income growth is significant enough to uplift women and their families from poverty.

There is also a lack of data and broader discussion on several key aspects, such as overcrowded space in selling the same products within small communities, along with related issues of limited mobility and similar initiatives (although different products) competing for limited income. We also don't really know how women entrepreneurs mitigate negative impact of microloan default when projected demands fail to materialize due to unpredictability of income source and purchase behavior of rural poor.

For example, Solar Sister talk about impact on women based on doubled income level in general and the number of women entrepreneurs they train, this basic quantitative output is insufficient to make an objective assessment to back up promises of meaningful social change.

Over the long term, I believe we need cumulative insight from these initiatives in producing rural women entrepreneurs since studying them in isolation based on product categories can hardly reveal the extent of social impact. There is a need of better understanding of effective strategy in engaging rural women in supply chain and at what value chain of social impact such initiatives can effectively deliver. Do they work well at the stage of job creation and income increase? Or can they influence more systemic social change? It's only possible when we investigate deeper and generate more solid evidence.

The 'Money Thing' in Social Entrepreneurship

We have inspiring talks and stories of social entrepreneurship and we passionately advocate for more people to be involved in the field, but does it really offer solid career tracks for all?

Consider the options, attempts on bootstrapped or lean startups with high failure rate may be called anything but careers. Joining social enterprises serving in poor communities or developing countries through various functional roles also often require big compromise on living wages. It's a common fact that there's greater uncertainty over financial and enterprise viability beside the more lucrative options in impact investment intermediaries and consulting.

While the motto that 'Everybody Can Be a Changemaker' is appealing, but the reality is not everybody has the necessary support to be involved in social entrepreneurship and make it a viable career option before the field reaches greater maturity. The call for more to be involved has to be complemented with evidence of growth and significant milestone in developing the key infrastructure for the field.