Social Entrepreneurship as Panacea for Sustainable Community Development

Abstract

This paper examines social entrepreneurship as a way of attaining sustainable community development. It specifically examines the practice of social entrepreneurship and how the idea gained popularity in recent discourse, as well as the focus of the idea as the use of business ventures in addressing social problems, promoting economic growth and enhancing community development. The paper adopted a conceptual review method to reveal that social entrepreneurship is a hybrid approach that emerge to transform communities with deliberate thoughts of social responsibility and has the potential of addressing social, economic and environmental challenges of communities including poverty, climate change, unemployment, education, healthcare, and security among others. Sustainable development requires a sustained social entrepreneurship that presents a holistic approach to community’s growth and development. Social entrepreneurship is therefore a veritable tool for sustainable community development which every nation must aspire to promote, encourage and establish policies capable of enhancing it. Keywords: Community Development, Social Change, Social Entrepreneurship, Sustainability