Social Enterprise in the Asia Pacific region: Government and Other Sectoral Support - Contributing to Sustainability or to Short-term 'Projectism'?

Recently, many Western governments have developed policies that support the roles that social enterprises (SE) can play both within the economy and wider community. Similar SE-related developments, and especially those concerned with developing skills or providing employment for disadvantaged groups, can be found in many countries within the Asia-Pacific region. Drawing upon on-going comparative research that investigates SE policy and support system development in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, the Philippines and India, this paper examines how the governments, private and third sectors in these places support the establishment, resourcing, business-planning, mentoring, product/service design, and marketing for SEs.In particular, the paper compares the development of government policies, NGO-linked or private/independent support systems and organizations in each jurisdiction and reflects on how these impact on SEs. The implications of the lack of SE definitional clarity and identifiable legal status are discussed and the apparent effectiveness of various government policies and their impact upon SE structures, daily operations, sustainability, and outcomes, will be questioned. The issues of possible SE mission drift occurring as SEs (and especially some parent NGOs) adapt their goals and modus operandi to support government-determined objectives or to meet eligibility requirements for government funding or fiscal incentives will also be highlighted. The paper will conclude by considering whether some government policy initiatives, despite being designed to enhance SE start-ups, may, nonetheless, be generating too much dependency on government resourcing and themselves be contributing to high failure-rates by SEs in the eventual achievement of self-sufficiency and sustainability.