19 Dec 2016 Seoul, Korea

GSEF hosted an international conference on innovative partnerships for fostering SSE in Seoul. The conference was organized as a follow-up forum to the GSEF2016 Montreal to report the outcomes of GSEF2016 and to discuss its significance. Diverse aspects of partnerships were discussed through the round tables, keynote speeches and special lectures. UN-NGLS (Hamish Jenkins, Head) discussed a partnership between UN-agencies and civil society for promoting SSE in a global scale with the example of creation of an Interagency Taskforce on the SSE and addressed the importance of localization in our global efforts. RIPESS (Yvon Poirier, Vice Coordinator) introduced the efforts of RIPESS in partnering with SSE networks in different continents for fostering SSE with particular emphasis on the SDGs (Cecile Vergier, Project Manager) presented the projects of CITIES with Key partner cities such as Quebec, Basque, Barcelona and Seoul to enhance mutualisation of knowledge and experience and the efforts to transfer to the international level. The three speakers also had a roundtable discussion in session I chaired by Taein Jung (KPIA, Executive Director) In session II chaired by Jeong Yeol Kim (Seoul Social Economy Policy Council, Charman) key SSE players in Seoul and Korea such as Seoul Social (Japan), Economy Center (Eunae Lee, Executive Director), Korea Fair Trade Organization (Kang Baek Lee, Standing Director), iCOOP (Ju hee Lee, Manager International Relations), Sunkyung Han (Cdot) engaged with active discussions on the topic of Korean SSE, Its global cooperation efforts and development strategies for the coming years. Further details of the conference will be updated on the website GSEF .