GSEF invited the President of ESSFI (ESS Forum International, GSEF Steering Committee) Thierry Jeantet to host a forum on local economic development and SSE innovation (17 Jan, Seoul). The forum was jointly organised with the Seoul Social Economy Center. And it provided an ample opportunity to explore social economy legal frameworks and social finance systems by comparing different historical backgrounds and institutional settings of two countries.

When it comes to the establishment of legal frameworks for the SSE, France took a more bottom up approach to better consolidate the civil society movements and field activitism sthat were rather fragmented in the 1970s, whereas in Korea it was a more top-down approach in the sense that the consolidation was primarily focused on different administrative bodies in the government and it was led by political parties. In the same regards, Korea’s experience of promoting social finance was led by governments, which was not implemented in a way to provide a level playing field for private sectors while France’s story tells otherwise. 

* For further details about the forum and more pictures, please refer to articles by Lifein and The Hankyoreh (only available in KR)

Thierry Jeantet also engaged in various meetings such as with the City of Seoul and gave lectures at Yonsei University to share the experience of France and with the GSEF Secretariat to discuss collaboration opportunities with the GSEF in promoting SSE. 

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