Time for an Asian social stock exchange-Durreen Shahnaz

Durreen Shahnaz, is an Associate Professor at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at National University of Singapore advocates in the daily Star for an Asian Stock Exchange

As I write this article, the storm in the financial markets continues — stock markets in Asia, Europe and the US all are going through roller coaster rides, people fear bank runs and governments are pulling together trillion dollars worth of rescue packages. In this sadly crazy historic moment, when every current option is looking bleak and governments are busy cleaning up the private sector mess, perhaps it is a good time to look some distance into the future toward a gleam of hope for a kinder and gentler form of capitalism. My suggestion for that is to put together effective regional ‘social stock exchanges’ in each continent that can spearhead social good through capital markets. I believe Asia is ripe to take the lead in meeting this challenge.

Giving the poor the business-USA Today

Nobel Prize winner Yunus has a new idea for attacking poverty through capitalism: Enlist companies whose mission is to change the world, writes Alan M. Webber in USA Today. I agree with the observation of Alan when he said at the end of the article that ‘It’s the kind of creative economic thinking that could earn Yunus a second Nobel Prize — this time in economics’.

Follow his writing in full:
Muhammad Yunus has already changed the world once, which is why he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. By creating the Grameen Bank and using microfinance to improve the lives of the poorest of the poor in Bangladesh, he demonstrated a transformational model for eliminating poverty.

Muhammad Yunus and the concept of social finance-azaroff.com

William Azaroff to whom banking is only marginally interesting but using the platform of banking to solve social problems is a powerful draw, writes in his own blog azaroff.com :

Muhammad Yunus At Vancity, where I work, we recently created a division called Social Finance. This is where our Business Banking department now resides, as well as Commercial Mortgages and our amazing Community Business Banking team, where many of our most innovative and socially relevant products and services are generated.

Creating and naming this new division was an interesting risk, and as soon as I heard the name Social Finance, I thought to myself: Holy crap I can’t believe I get to work here.

Muhammad Yunus’ Social Business-Saving the world with a cup of yogurt

Sheridan Prasso reports in Fortune magazine regarding his observation on Professor Yunus’ first vnture about social business:

Along a dirt road in Bangladesh’s green, fertile heartland, 140 miles northwest of Dhaka, workers in flip-flops are hauling bricks, pouring cement and hammering boards. The object of their labor: a small yogurt factory being built by Danone, the French food company, on the outskirts of Bogra.

It may not look like much, but the one-story building behind a wrought-iron gate is the epicenter of a Big New Idea – one that Muhammad Yunus, the winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering work on microcredit, thinks can revolutionize a world still being transformed by his first big idea.

Davos 2008: Bill Gates’ Creative Capitalism and Muhammad Yunus’ Social Business-Vivian Norris de Montaigu

Vivian Norris de Montaigu, writes in The Huffington Post on the closeness of Bill Gates’ Creative Capitalism and Muhammad Yunus’ Social Business:

The way it works is that instead of giving money away to a non-profit charity, you help create businesses — in fact new business models. As little as a $25 can motivate an entrepreneur in the developing world, by funding a microcredit organization such as Kiva.org, which gives out small loans. This process allows that money to grow and be reused and help create true sustainability, unlike the charity dollar which must be raised each year. Now try the same thing on the corporate level and you can begin to see that it is truly possible to create a “world without poverty”, and that poverty is indeed an “artificial construction.” These words have been stated time and again by Professor Muhammad Yunus’, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and they are put forth in his latest book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. Professor Yunus, also known as the “banker to the poor” is asking that the poor be poor no more and is inviting major international corporations to not make a profit off the poor, but actually create sustainable businesses which also provide a public service, be it in the areas of health, technology, infrastructure, communications, education, etc.

Professor Muhammad Yunus, Social Business and Future of Capitalism

The Social Ecosystem which prefers exploring entrepreneurial ideas that address social issues, enhance the environment, sustain development and transform the developing world publishes the following article by Raj Melville titled Professor Muhammd Yunus, Social Business and Future of Capitalism.

Earlier this year, Nobel laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus was the invited guest speaker at MIT’s 142nd commencement. In his prepared remarks to the students he outlined how he started microcredit thirty plus years ago from a simple desire to free villagers near his university in Chittagong from the penalizing interest that they paid to moneylenders.

Social Business thoughts by Cholmes in ‘Into The Pudding’

Cholmes writes in ‘Into The Pudding’ his thoughts on social business:

A month or two ago I came across an amazing piece by Muhammad Yunus, where he introduces the ‘Social Business’. I do hope the meme builds momentum, and I’m hoping my ‘dot-org‘ concept can grow to be the technological sector of the social business world. It’s a great narrowing of the term ‘Social Enterprise‘, which I feel has almost been too broadly adopted so as to become less meaningful. I’m looking for a more narrow focus – entities that are fundamentally both in service of a mission and operated to draw income from the market, not from charity. He articulates this better than I’ve seen before, with his full cost recovery social business – leaving behind the dependency of a charity, one enters the business world with ‘limitless possibilities’.

I especially liked his points about a Social Stock Market, that it needs to be a set of separate concepts, with different measures and media outlets. But I find his ideas on how to get there a bit weak – having a design competition that rewards the best ones with funding. He also suggests that someone soon could just hatch a Social Stock Market, and a little research found that Rockefeller is already moving to fund one. But I’m fearful that it’s too much too soon, and that a bunch of not so great social enterprises will give it a bad name.

The land of Creative Capitalism

Durreen Shahnaz, who is working as an Associate Professor in the University of Singapore writes the following article in Daily Star in Business section on 26 June 2008 titled ‘The land of creative capitalism’ discussing the opportunities of social business in Bangladesh:

I wrote a piece for this newspaper several months ago, the general theme of which was that we as a nation need a tag line or a ‘mantra’ around which we can unite the country. Given that in the last few months I have not heard any compelling suggestions, I will be presumptuous enough to give our country a tag line/vision/theme, which is, ‘In five years time, Bangladesh will be the world leader of creative capitalism’.

CommonDreams.org republished an article on Social Business by Dr. Muhammad Yunus

Published on Friday, February 15, 2008 by the Christian Science Monitor

How Social Business Can Create a World Without Poverty

by Muhammad Yunus

Bill Gates caused a stir in Davos last month with his call for “creative capitalism.” He pointed out that while capitalism is “responsible for the great innovations that have improved the lives of billions … to harness this power so it benefits everyone, we need to refine the system.”

I see traditional capitalism as a half-developed structure. It ignores the humanity within all of us.

Moneymaking is an important part of humanity, but it is not the only part. Caring, concern, sharing, empathy – all of these aspects also must be considered when developing an economic framework that takes the whole person into account.

Enter the missing piece of the global development puzzle: social business.