Part 1 of this blog post highlighted some difficulties faced by social entrepreneurs in Asia; Part 2 profiles Synergy Social Ventures, which supports social enterprise, and ties in lessons for the broader world of social finance.

Synergy Social Ventures is a not-for-profit organization that was created in response to the challenges we saw preventing social enterprises from accelerating in Southeast Asia and China. In our work with entrepreneurs throughout the region, we identified a number of commonalities.

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The concepts of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship are newer to Southeast Asia and China than to other parts of the world. If someone was asked to name the most successful social enterprises globally, it is unlikely that an individual or organization from Southeast Asia or China would be the first to come to mind.

But a closer look at the region reveals many entrepreneurial individuals and teams creating impact in innovative ways and striving to develop business models that will financially sustain and grow their organizations. Across Southeast Asia and China, impact focused enterprises are sprouting, growing and building solutions to social, economic, and environmental problems through different business models.

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Social impact bonds and pay for success financing are generating a great deal of interest around the globe, and the US and Australia have been at the centre of much of it since the turn of the new year, as this post describes. In this short clip, Les Hems, Director of Research at the Centre for Social Impact in Australia, provides an overview of what's happening Down Under.

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The 2012 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting kicked off today with a markedly sombre tone.  Economic imbalances and rising inequality threaten to reverse the gains of globalization, according to the WEF report Global Risks 2012, released earlier this month, while the past year's global economic turmoil, spiraling debt crisis and social upheaval are surely weighing heavily on the minds and agendas of global leaders gathering in Davos.

The theme for this year's meeting is, appropriately, "The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models."  There is a recognition that our current system for economic and global governance is broken, and systemic change is required.

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The SocialFinance.ca weekly round up is back! SocialFinance.ca produces a round up featuring social finance related news, insights, job openings, and events. We source the content for these round ups from Twitter, an RSS reader, and directly from our community of social finance practitioners. Below is our round up for the weeks of January 16 and January 24.

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