Phil Hope addresses Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship
27 March 2008
Phil Hope, Minister for the Third Sector, yesterday addressed over 650
social entrepreneurs, thought leaders, policy makers, academics, corporate
representatives, financiers and philanthropists from around the world at
the fifth Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford.
Speaking in the opening plenary session alongside Jeff Skoll, Founder and
Chairman of the Skoll Foundation and Lord Anthony Giddens, Phil talked
about how social enterprise has the potential to make a huge contribution
to defeating the ‘five giants’ threatening our society today.
Phil identified the five giants we face are collective problems that
threaten us as communities and not just as individuals: Inequality;
pollution and climate change; ignorance of other communities; social
epidemics like obesity, diabetes and HIV/Aids; and untapped energy for
social action.
Through regulation, better procurement policies, encouraging enterprise and
enabling access to mainstream pubic and private finance, Government has a
key role to play in signalling big shifts in behaviour that will create an
environment in which social enterprise can flourish.
The Skoll World Forum is an annual three day international event for social
entrepreneurs with a focus on learning, problem solving and community
building. This year’s theme is ‘Social Entrepreneurship: culture, context
and social change’ and the various plenaries, panel discussions, workshops
and academic presentations are looking at how cultural contexts, norms and
behaviours create challenges and opportunities for social entrepreneurs,
their models and their ability to create change
The World Forum is co-produced by the Skoll Centre for Social
Entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and the
Skoll Foundation, set up in 1999 by ebay founder Jeff Skoll.
A working paper sponsored by the Office of the Third
Sector, by Alex Nicholls of the Skoll Centre for Social
Entrepreneurship has also been published at the World Forum. We are
pleased to sponsor this paper and the Skoll Centre’s social capital markets
research in order to enhance understanding of financial resources available
to social enterprises and encourage innovative thinking when tackling
issues concerning access to finance. This paper forms part of a larger
range of work on social investment in partnership with, and supported by
the Office of the Third Sector.
