'DICE is essentially a beacon of hope in disparate, desperate times. I love the ambition and fusion of sectors – nobody is doing this; please do more.' - DICE collaborator
Life cycle
2018-20
Country/Region
Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, South Africa, UK
Client/Partner
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO)
Vision
To address issues of poor employment prospects for young people and the lack of inclusive growth in emerging economies, by building the capacity of entrepreneurs and intermediaries to nurture creative economies.
Situation
In spite of relatively high economic growth rates over the past 20 years, developing economies are facing very significant challenges. They are home to over five of the world’s seven billion people and 73 per cent of the world’s poor; two out of every five young persons of working age are either unemployed or working in jobs that don’t pay enough to escape poverty. These issues are most urgent among youth, particularly young women. Using Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies (DICE), we aim to address this rising inequality by building the capacity of entrepreneurs and intermediaries to help solve the social challenges of our time.
Implementation
DICE delivers contextual, globally-connected initiatives to complement the creative social ecosystems in our DICE countries. Our programme design and delivery is inclusive and engages our diverse stakeholders over the long-term. We are:
- Training 2000 entrepreneurs and enterprises seeking to create daring solutions to social challenges, building networks and employment prospects in the process
- Strengthening over 750 intermediaries (e.g. universities, hubs, incubators) that support creative social enterprises, new employment, and leadership
- Convening over 200 policy makers to foster creative ideas and policies for inclusive growth.
Impact
The DICE Global Evaluation is underway, with findings due in May 2020. We anticipate the pilot’s immediate impact to include:
- Creative Social Entrepreneurs (particularly those economically excluded) grow in capacity and confidence; and build connections in the process
- Intermediaries build skills and knowledge; and build connections across sectors, silos and borders
- Policymakers and other actors, including academics, artists, researchers, have improved knowledge and new ideas for the role of creative social enterprises in inclusive economic development.
We are evaluating the effectiveness of the programme throughout, including embodying the values we hope to see in our societies in our ways of working. We are carrying out a consistent underlying strategic framework across six countries, and (where appropriate) co-developing and delivering interlinked global activity to achieve better value and impact, rather than six separate country programmes.
Mutual benefit
We are promoting the cultural relations approach to international development by utilising the UK's expertise as a co-creator and co-beneficiary. Through every strand of the ecosystem we work with UK partners. For example, through the £2 million DICE Global Fund, we both convene and underwrite a portfolio of 29 co-designed initiatives addressing economic exclusion through creative social initiatives and community ventures between intermediaries in the UK and other DICE countries. The expectation is the learning and successes of these projects will be shared and embedded in the UK partners’ communities as much as in the communities they are partnering with overseas.