By Kanji Usui
I've been consistently engaged with development issues in emerging countries ever since participating in the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers program over 30 years ago (yes, that reveals my age...). I've noticed that the players addressing social challenges have undergone significant transformations over these decades.
This is quite a broad overview, but I'd like to touch on this topic.
In the 1970s, the primary actors solving social challenges were unquestionably governments and local municipalities. While this remains true today, they addressed social problems by formulating policies, advancing legal frameworks, and implementing them.
By the 1980s, NGOs and NPOs emerged on the scene. Grassroots support in areas beyond government reach became increasingly prominent.
In the 1990s, corporations began to participate, and it was around this time that we started hearing the term "CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)". Companies were increasingly expected to balance profit pursuit with social harmony.
Then came the 2000s. Social entrepreneurs and ethical enterprises appeared, accelerating the shift toward making social challenges themselves the "core business".
Looking back this way, we can see that the responsibility for addressing social challenges has shifted from "public" to "private", and further to "individual" and "corporate core business".
So what will happen in the next decade?
With the power of technologies like AI and WEB3, we may be entering an era where "anyone can become a player".