KATHMANDU, Oct 14: Senior leader of Nepali Congress (NC) Dr Shekhar Koirala has said that social businesses must be at the center of political agenda and policymaking to address multiple problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Addressing a webinar organized jointly by Nepal School of Entrepreneurship and Yunus Center, Bangladesh, Dr Koirala argued that identifying ways and means to reinvigorate social entrepreneurship is a must to meet the present and future needs of the mankind as the world is likely to face many other unforeseen threats like COVID-19. 

"In seeing the immeasurable impacts created by manmade and natural disasters, and now disease like Covid-19 and other unforeseeable threats in future, it is certain that we have arrived at a very critical juncture where ideas, concepts, and action plans like social entrepreneurship or even social business must be at the center of our political agenda and policymaking," said Dr Koirala.

Addressing the webinar entitled "Reinvigorating Social Entrepreneurship after COVID-19, Dr Koirala argued that social entrepreneurship must focus to tie up hundreds of thousands of small and medium enterprises that are going to shut their businesses due to pandemic with banks or capital providers to help them sustain the pandemic, establish more social entrepreneurship entities to promote semi-digitization to connect rural villages with cities. 

Dr Koirala also asked the government to lead, facilitate, and provide access at all fronts to promote social entrepreneurship to help address the common problems facing the country. "Now is the time to focus on Social Business rather than Social Enterprises. This is the time that demands it. It is easy to find people and organizations to fund social business rather than Social Enterprises. Social Business will make money and at the same time impact the society," he added.

 Also addressing the webinar as a keynote speaker, Noble Laureate Prof. Dr. Muhammad Yunus said social businesses should be given priority as they seek to solve problems faced by ordinary people. While arguing that the profit-maximizing market economy had already created a number of problems, Prof. Yunus also said that the COVID-19 pandemic had given policymakers an opportunity to build a new financial system that addresses the problems faced by ordinary people.

Former Vice Chairman of National Planning Commission Dr Swarnim Wagle said that social business has become inevitable in the aftermath of COVID-19 that has ravaged the global economy and pushed millions of people into extreme poverty and hunger. He argued that the importance of social business had only grown further as the COVID-19 had ruptured inequalities across all sectors. 

Social entrepreneur Maushumi Shrestha had also spoken about the works her organization had been doing for the past several and shed light on the importance of social businesses in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Executive Officer of Nepal School of Entrepreneurship Ranjan Ojha had taken the initiative to organize the webinar to promote the idea of social businesses in Nepal. 

 
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