GSEF2016 which took place in Montreal from 6^th to 9^th of September reached its grand finale. Over 1,500 participants from 330 cities, 62 countries, over 200 government officials and 9 international organisations gathered in Montreal to promote the social and solidarity economy in a global scale. The central theme of GSEF2016 was ‘the collaboration between local governments and organisations of the social and solidarity economy (SSE)’ and selected 120 best social economy practices presented along with 11 working groups by different SSE themes. As the outcome of the GSEF2016, the Montreal Declaration; the promise of commitments of 1,500 participants across continents for the development of SSE was adopted. One of the main outcomes of the GSEF2016, the International Centre for Innovation and Knowledge Transfer on the Social and Solidarity Economy (C.I.T.I.E.S) officially launched with the commitments from local governments and SSE networks from the City of Seoul, Montreal, Mondragon, Bilbao and Barcelona. As a close partner institution of GSEF, C.I.T.I.E.S will assist GSEF to achieve its mission by providing various programmes to the GSEF members such as advisory services, study missions, exchange programmes and research projects. A full report of the plenary sessions, workshops and working group discussions will be published soon and will be available on the GSEF websites.