Social enterprises contribute to a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. They play an important role in tackling social challenges by filling the gap in services of the public and private sector.
ECNL has been promoting a more enabling environment for social entrepreneurship through research and technical assistance for several years.The concept is still relatively new outside of Europe. Most recently, we have been supporting the discussions around the development of a regulatory framework for social enterprises in Jamaica.
As part of our work, we developed a briefer about the current regulatory trends of social entrepreneurship in Europe. The Briefer highlights examples from 12 countries diverse in size, economic development, and other characteristics. It was designed around pre-selected issues that are relevant to Jamaican stakeholders. The Briefer focuses on key models, their advantages and disadvantages, their intersection with the charitable status, registration and oversight.
ECNL also presented the Briefer in Kingston in July 2019 at the conference co-organized by ICNL and The University of West Indies, Mona School of Business and Management about the legal and regulatory framework for social enterprises. More than 60 people participated representing social enterprises, government, academia, and donor community. We emphasized the importance of creating a legislation that is proportionate, provides clear and simple procedures, meaningful benefits and sufficient flexibility for innovation so that it enables rather than restricts the operation of social enterprises.