Case report Social entrepreneurship tackling poverty in Bamyan Province, Afghanistan Said Ahmad Maisam Najafizada a,⇑ , Maurie J. Cohen b a Division of Community Health and Humanities, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Health Sciences Centre, 300 Prince Philip Drive, Room 2852, St. John’s, NL A1B 3V6, Canada b Program in Science, Technology, and Society, New Jersey Institute of Technology, University Heights, Newark, NJ 07102, United States article info Article history: Received 20 January 2017 Revised 6 February 2017 Accepted 7 February 2017 Keywords: Social entrepreneurship Developing countries Poverty alleviation Poverty traps Asia Afghanistan abstract Recent years have seen growing interest in the design and implementation of interventions to reduce poverty in developing countries based on social entrepreneurship. While there are numerous examples of this model being applied around the world, we present a case of social entrepreneurship involving car- pet weavers in Bamyan, an extremely rural and resource-constrained province in Afghanistan. The inves- tigation demonstrates a process of poverty alleviation that began with poor villagers undertaking the hardest and most mundane production tasks. This work allowed some people to access better education and training and to in due course move on to less onerous employment. We also found that poor Afghans are embedded in stratified communities in which households at relatively higher levels are most able to break the cycle of poverty. The most capable individuals tend to be young and diligent members of slightly more prosperous families with motivation and talent for education and skill acquisition. Poverty-alleviation programs based on social entrepreneurship have the potential to improve living con- ditions and to launch at least some people on a trajectory of gradual transformation, but the effects are unlikely to diffuse to entire communities. Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Poverty-alleviation strategies based on social entrepreneurship seek to create societal value by identifying opportunities and resources in innovative ways (Rametse & Shah, 2013). More specif- ically, the aim of social entrepreneurs is to enhance well-being through a combination of ‘‘recognizing and exploiting opportuni- ties to create this value, employing innovation, tolerating risk, and brushing aside limitations in available resources” (Peredo & McLean 2006, p. 13). Researchers and others have identified numerous instances in which social entreprenuership has con- tributed positively to developmental progress and this case report focuses on a modest example in a remote region of central Afgha- nistan that has been spearheaded by an organization called Arzu Studio Hope. The present population of Afghanistan is approximately 31 mil- lion with roughly ten million people (32 percent) living in extreme poverty (according to international standards of less than US$1.25 per day), and a further nine million (29 percent) maintains slightly better lifestyles just above this line. Both of these groups are acutely vulnerable to socioeconomic shocks and face pronounced risk of falling back into a vicious cycle of poverty (Gupta, Shuaib, Becker, Rahman, & Peters, 2011; Trani, Biggeri, & Mauro, 2013). A significant portion of the population in central Afghanistan relies for its meagre income on carpet weaving which is one of the coun- try’s most important economic activities. The living and working conditions of Afghan carpet weavers have not received to date a great deal of attention and beyond the villages little is known about the lifestyles of the workers for which this industry provides a livelihood. Accordingly, and despite the popularity and high prices for finished carpets on global mar- kets, the vast majority of Afghan workers experience lives of pov- erty and deprivation. One notable organization called Arzu Studio Hope has been working for the past decade to improve the lives of people in these communities and to focus attention on the wea- vers responsible for producing these finely crafted floor coverings rather than the artfulness of the handcrafting itself. As a proponent of social entrepreneurship, the stated goal of Arzu Studio Hope is ‘‘to help Afghan female carpet weavers and their families break the cycle of poverty” (Arzu, 2015). Based in Chicago, the organization was established in 2004 and has over the past decade provided working opportunities for 81 families in Bamyan (Table 1). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wdp.2017.02.003 2452-2929/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: mnajafizada@mun.ca (S.A.M. Najafizada), mcohen@njit.edu (M.J. Cohen). World Development Perspectives 5 (2017) 24–26 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect World Development Perspectives journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wdp