GSIF09 SUMMARIES

Social Innovation Lab 4: SIP-MIT: Bridging the Tri-Sector Divide

Thursday, 1 October  

• Rosihan Arsyad • Ongku Hasibuan • Huang Yasheng • Diana Kuan

Facilitated by • Ben Chan • Frans Sugiarta

  • The convergence of civil societies, public and private sector over the past 15-20 years on social responsibility has seen the emergence of a new entity—social enterprise. Impact investments (II), a subset of socially responsible investments, are becoming increasingly popular as people recognize how it is a tool that can combine social and financial returns.

  • The challenges faced in bridging the divide between the government, the private sector and civil society are different in both China and Indonesia. Yet, these challengers can be overcome through building trust and mutual understanding.

  • Discussion leaders from Indonesia shared their experience of how the Indonesian government’s red-tape and bureaucracy can pose as a big challenge in making proper progress in the country as decision-making becomes a slow process. 

  • However, some changes are being implemented, such as providing sanitation to rural areas and this is possible by way of building trust between all of the three sectors. Better cooperation can also come along with the presence of mutual understanding. In Indonesia too, there is growing awareness of the need to bridge in the tri-sector divide for the betterment of the Indonesian people.

  • Discussion leaders from China, however, debated whether a civil society even exists in China seeing its strong communist rule. They highlighted that even the private sector was only formed about 20 years ago when China decided to open up its economy.

  • Despite that, they agreed that environment can be used as the common ground to bridge the sectors together as it is an issue that affects everyone—especially the issue of water in China.

  • More importantly, discussion leaders stressed the importance of leadership in bridging different groups in society.

  • In addition, there is also a need to suspend judgment in order to build trust. Such skills can be learned from the IDEAS (Innovative, Dynamic Education for Action and Sustainability) program, a collaboration between the United in Diversity Forum (UID) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management.

  • This program has been successful in training 29 leaders from the three sectors in Indonesia and China in the past one year and has resulted in a sanitation project being carried out in Indonesia.

Download GSIF09 Social Innovation Lab 4 - Summary.