Landscape of social entrepreneurship in Nepal

Here is a summary of  challenges faced by social entrepreneurs in India.I think Nepali social enterprises are also facing similar challenges

  

Barriers	Challenges	Some Solutions
Access to finance	Refers to the financial barriers related to the lack of equity, debt, and working capital for start-up social enterprises and non financial barriers, such as a lack of financial literacy.	-provision of Blended Capital (mix of equity and grant funding) -Angel financing or royalty -based debt - awareness among HNIs on the potential to invest in social enterprises
Access to Talent	Lack of finance to pay market rate salaries is the main cause of this challenge, with the consequence that these businesses are unable to hire or retain qualified and experienced staff.	- Fellowship programs exist to provide emerging talent for impact investors. - Grant funded training programs for employees of social enterprises. - Provision of shared professionals between social enterprises is a potential solution but one that has yet to be implemented.
Scaling Up	Many enterprises fail to scale due to a range of factors including complex legal structures, a lack of state government support and an absence of basic infrastructure.	- Policy studies supported by donor agencies and investors to establish the business case for an innovative inclusive business model in a specific industry. - Collaborative partnerships between social enterprises and third parties that have 'made the last mile linkage' to access consumers.
Regional Inclusiveness	There is a clustering of impact investments in a few geographies as indicated through this research.	- Develop regional specific investment funds. - Establish regional social innovation think tanks and incubators.
Sourcing and Pipeline	The challenge is how to source genuine social enterprises that are located outside the metros at an affordable cost.	- Commission knowledge sharing and policy papers on context specific operating models, and local conditions that drive the ways products and services are distributed and sold in specific Indian States.
Capacity Building and Training Solutions	Social enterprises require significant capacity building and training to attain the education, skills, and access to information in order to execute their business plan.	- Mentoring for building capacity of entrepreneurs. - Expansion of existing or creation of new social enterprise incubators in new geographies replicating models such as Unltd, Dasra and Intellecap
Impact Measurement Transparency and Reporting	The difficultly in measuring impact and an absence in the standardization of impact measurement and third-party assurance of reporting are all industry challenges.	- Creating an India specific platform detailing basic profile information of all the impact investors and incubators operating in the country. - Policy development in partnership with asset owners on their reporting requirements
Ecosystem Coordination, Policy and Regulation	Regulatory issues include the lack of a legal structure for social enterprises, restrictive laws on foreign capital flows, equity investment regulations, and restrictions on blended capital.	- Research policy papers on ssues for social enterprise ecosystem to advocate for change.
Investment Exits	The lack of investments that have resulted in exists, was cited as the most significant to industry growth in a survey by JP Morgan and GIIN.	- Policy studies on other impact investment markets to analyze different models that investors have exited. - Creation of a database of impact investment exits in the Indian market

Source: Enablers for Change -A Market Landscape of the Indian Social Enterprise Ecosystem," September 2012, Prepared for GIZ by Ernst and Young Pvt. Ltd.