The UfM Promotes Social Economy as agent of Resilient Economies and Societies

The UfM will partner again with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and with the Spanish Confederation of Social Economy Enterprises (CEPES), to organize on 26 June 2020 the UfM Online Workshop on “Social Economy and the Post-Pandemic Recovery: Challenges and Prospects”. This year’s edition will focus on the role that Social Economy should play in the social and economic recovery and the measures to promote its contribution to a sustainable growth path and reduction of inequalities in the Euro-Mediterranean region in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Workshop will also address the challenges faced by Social Economy after the emergency and the innovative solutions provided by this enterprise model based on values of democracy, solidarity and social responsibility to the most immediate effects of the crisis through creating jobs, supporting small enterprises and tackling social and economic injustices.

The Workshop will bring multiple stakeholders from both shores of the Mediterranean to share best practices and recommendations on the path ahead, acting upon the takeaways from the 2019 UfM Social Economy Workshop that called for the need “to generate a space for dialogue aimed at promoting and developing the Social Economy in the Mediterranean.”

In 2019, the UfM Secretariat organized its first UfM Workshop on Social Economy in Barcelona, with a focus on the MENA Region and the Balkans. The Workshop tackled two key thematics, namely Entrepreneurship and Job Creation in Social Economy and Social Innovation for a positive Socio-Economic Impact.