Guest blogger Andrew Mack is the Founder and Principal of AMGlobal Consulting, and a former World Bank official. He blogs at Andy's Global View and can be reached at: contact@amglobal.com

By Andrew Mack

In his piece last month about "incremental infrastructure", Ethan Zuckerman makes a number of excellent points about the recent development of infrastructure in Africa. Using his example of the entrepreneur who put up cell towers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he rightly observes that there are opportunities to think beyond the traditional, top-down structures of infrastructural development.

He cites the logistical and budgetary problems of many nations as they seek to build out not just the famous "last mile", but in cases like DRC, many of the basic earlier miles that need to be in place if a country wants to be connected – by road, by power grid, or by wireless. And, while he doesn't dwell on one of the real reasons for this failure – Government disorganization or outright corruption – he hints at it as a driving force which creates both the space and the need for other approaches.

However, while the idea of incremental infrastructure is interesting, I would argue that at least to some extent, Ethan's argument misses the larger point. It is not incremental infrastructure so much as "entrepreneurial infrastructure" that Africa needs and has shown it wants.

By focusing on the example of cell towers in DRC, Ethan may have chosen the one item best suited for incremental infrastructure. But consider roads... if a community – or a firm – decides to build an incremental piece of road, and who pays? Who maintains the road? Who sets the safety standards (as road accidents are an epidemic in many African countries today)? And what if the road doesn't connect in to a larger grid? Clearly, while cellphones may not need coordination to function, most other pieces of infrastructure – roads, energy, etc. – do. And they need standards.

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"In the face of this new reality, an increasing number of forward-looking nonprofits are beginning to appreciate the increased revenue, focus and effectiveness that can come from adopting "for profit" business approaches. Increasingly, they are reinventing themselves as social entrepreneurs, combining "the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination." From "The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship" by J. Gregory Dees.

Social entrepreneurs have the motivation of making the world a better place and have a passion for a social mission through entrepreneurial, earned-income strategies commonly known as triple bottom line.

David Bornstein is the author of "How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas," a book about social entrepreneurship. Guy Kawasaki recently interviewed him because Bornstein just updated his book; if you haven’t read it, it's a good time to go to the store and get the new, updated version. The Stanford Social Innovation Review published an article in the summer 2007 issue trying to define what a social entrepreneur is. It seems that the term gets broader and broader every day; Ashoka defines it as "men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems."

A little self promotion: Rodrigo Villar, director of WRI's New Ventures project in Mexico, has been awarded the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship, which supports social entrepreneurs. As an Ashoka fellow, he will develop a directory of "Green Pages." This directory is a sustainable products and services guide (like the Yellow Pages) that will inform green consumers in Mexico.

In the interview with Guy Kawasaki, Bornstein emphasizes the role of social entrepreneurship in the world. He talks about how social entrepreneurship is starting to be a more mainstream idea, and how more and more people are becoming familiar with the term and the outcomes. The only caveat is, as I mentioned earlier, that there should be a more clear definition on who exactly is a social entrepreneur. At the moment, the term is considered very broad, according to the SSIR article quoted above.

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