About Us

The Bangladesh Enterprise Institute (BEI), an independent non-profit research centre, in association with the Foundation for Development Cooperation (FDC) based in Australia and Libra Advisory Group based in UK has initiated the Bangladesh Social Enterprise Project (BSEP), supported by the British Government’s Department for International Development (DFID). This project aims to utilize key strengths of the private sector to address some of the poverty related issues of our country.

The project purpose is ‘to identify and build innovative partnerships within the private sector to undertake projects and programmes which are commercially viable and directly benefit the poor in alleviating poverty and at the same time, meet the development objectives of Bangladesh.’

Through the course of the project we will be organizing three workshops with the participation of members from the public sector, private sector and NGOs. These valuable workshops will be essential in information and perspective sharing, identifying key partners and developing action plans for possible business initiatives. The workshops will be designed and moderated by experts on this evolving subject of social business and social entrepreneurship. The kick off workshop is scheduled to be held on April 6 and 7, 2009; the objective of this workshop is to identify the strengths and opportunities of companies in doing business with the poor and address the challenges and threats. In addition, this will be an opportunity to identify profitable cooperation with NGOs and the government, and bring to the forefront key gaps in government’s priority for development.

At the end of the project we aim to initiate at least five private sector sponsored programmes, such as promoting business linkages through sub-contracting in specific industries, providing skills training in rural areas to promote job creation, management and supervisory training for women, expanding markets in the rural areas etc.

The project will be led by Ms. Lopa Rahman, Project Director at BEI who will be assisted by Mr. Md. Rashedur Rahman, Research Associate, BEI. The consultants for this project are Mr. Craig Wilson, Executive Director, FDC, and Peter Wilson, Senior Advisor, Libra Advisory Group who will be supported by the relevant experts in their respective fields.

BSEP welcomes participation from all members of the private sector, NGOs and the government to join this highly innovative project, which has the potential to have a profound impact on poverty alleviation and economic development of the country.