Bringing the Work to the People

Why would Bangladeshis, of all people, make better entrepreneurs? Samantha Morshed of Dhaka, Bangladesh, the British CEO of nonprofit enterprise Hathay Bunano, has the best answer to her own question. Because the number of CEOs in Bangladesh is still rather small on the whole, Hathay Bunano has committed to creating sustainable rural employment.

Samantha Morshed had $500 in start-up capital and twelve female employees when she persuaded her husband Golam, to found the social enterprise of Hathay Bunano Proshikhan Society (Hathay Bunano, for short) with her. Her daring choice was conceived as an economic counterexample to the distinguished ideas of world-famous Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Some twenty years before, Yunus had publicized the theory of eradicating global poverty through the concept of microcredit: tiny loans of start-up capital to help the poor establish small businesses. Through these loans, Yunus hopes to populate the world with business experts who can banish poverty "to a museum," as he has declared in his books and speeches.

Samantha Morshed was skeptical of microcredit. Even if these tiny loans could turn the poor into entrepreneurs in theory, in practice the people would still remain dependent, left to the tender mercies of the market and the economic situation in their very local areas. She aims to turn Yunus's school of thought inside out: "The vast majority of people [in rural Bangladesh] want a job," she says, "jobs are what people want and jobs will eradicate poverty. At the same time, however, the approaches to creating employment and eradicating poverty are fundamentally different. Morshed's simple but clear message is that people need work – but the work must be available where the people live.

She criticizes employers in both the industrial and the developing world for assuming that people will put up with any amount of strain for the privilege of selling their labor. Their willingness to reduce themselves to the level of migrant workers seems voluntary: indeed, there are many countries where economic migrants will stream en masse to wherever employers locate their factories. Such choices impoverish societies and rip apart families. This type of work often breaks social ties, destroys marriages, and leaves fatherless children and single parents in its wake, with all of the negative consequences for the social fabric that these entail.

Morshed's idea is different: her social enterprise brings the jobs to the remote villages of Bangladesh where the people live. She believes that women in the villages should be able to make the walk to work in 10 minutes. And of this she is convinced: "Factories are located in areas convenient to factory owners....A workforce located in their own villages, workers living in their own homes, would likely bring much greater benefit in poverty reduction to a larger number of people." Her idea is working; today 3,500 women in 32 rural cooperatives work for Hathay Bunano and help to support their own families.

The women sew, knit, and embroider, faithful to the company name: Hathay Bunano translates literally to "hand-made." Its employees produce high-quality, handcrafted clothes and toys. Their products are aimed at children and infants from birth to six years of age. What's more, the organization with their proprietary ‘Pebble’ brand line is certified fair trade, and Morshed and her husband are currently working towards SA8000 certification. Hathay Bunano exports its products worldwide, with major markets for the flourishing corporation in the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Europe, and the domestic market of Bangladesh. Sales are booming: today the women of Hathay Bunano ship some 30,000 items to customers per month.

This principle, of putting the firm first so as to put the profits into tackling poverty, is part of the "creative capitalism" approach that multibillionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates proposed at Davos in 2008. Corporations like Morshed's fit the bill of creative, engaged capitalism perfectly. According to Gates, the business ideas from Samantha Morshed and her cohort can help to plug the gaps in this era of economic and financial crises, when poor countries can no longer sufficiently provide for their citizens. Even Queen Elizabeth has recognized the importance of what Morshed is doing: in 2009 she honored the British entrepreneur from Bangladesh by awarding her an MBE.