What can government do to help?

Alex Nicholls, Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, describes the role of government in enabling financial flows to reach social enterprises and inclusive businesses.

Government can take a range of steps to enable financial flows to reach social enterprises and inclusive businesses and to support the development of social finance and impact investment.

The three tools available to governments are:

• Making capital available through impact investment funds and programmes.

• Developing mechanisms and incentives to enable finance to flow into social enterprises and inclusive businesses from other sources.

• Adjusting the regulatory environment to make it easier for social investors to enter the market.