A Computational Framework for Social Entrepreneurs to Determine Policies for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Many villagers in India suffer from multiple socio-economic challenges, such as, low-income, unemployment, and lack of access to clean water and energy that hinder their overall development. Social entrepreneurs can assist with the design and implementation of policies that help villagers achieve overall sustainability. Previously, a framework to support social entrepreneurs and stakeholders in identifying potential challenges and evaluating the impact of solutions concerning sustainable development was proposed. The framework was anchored in a single perspective (thematic area) Dilemma Triangle Method for identification of challenges and System Dynamics Models for evaluation of impacts. Policies for sustainable development, however, require an understanding of the interactions among multiple possibilities and their associated challenges to be viable, feasible, and equitable. Additionally, one key missing feature in the past framework is the evaluation of the economic impact of the solutions or policies. In this paper, we add new value to the past framework using the Dilemma Triangle Method to integrate more than one perspective, and the System Dynamics Model integrating the economic indicator to get a holistic view of sustainable development. By the addition of more than one thematic area in the Dilemma Triangle Method, the inter-dependency among thematic areas and their associated parameters is understood, which is necessary for identifying problems in complex systems. We include Gross Value Added (GVA) as an economic indicator for evaluating the economic feasibility of the policies identified by using the framework. To illustrate the efficacy of the framework, we implement it for the Kantashol village (panchayat), Jharkhand, India. Based on the Dilemma Triangle Method, multiple policies are proposed, out of which four policies are evaluated in the Systems Dynamic Model for the sustainable development of the village. The policies are currently being applied in the village and the outcome of this framework will be validated in real-time over the years.