Announcement
• Post GSEF2016 forum (Dec. 19):
“A step toward social innovation: urban challenges and the partnership between local governments and SSE actors”
• REVES Excellence Award 2017 Call for Good Practice (28 Feb.17)

Latest News
• GSEF visit to the Philippines
- CityNet Executive Committee Meeting
- RIPESS Asia (ASEC) Strategic workshop
- Local Government Academy

Book Review
• Economy of Communion: Case of Seong Sim Dang

Upcoming Events
• SIB (Social Impact Bond) International Conference
• Conference on the Social Economy and Social Enterprises (30, Nov)
• 1st Meda Social Economy Forum (2, Dec)
• PhilSEN Social Entrepreneurship forum (7-8, Dec)
• SEFORIS conference (9, Dec)

Post-GSEF2016 forum will be taking place in Seoul this December under the theme ‘a step toward social innovation: urban challenges and the partnership between local governments and SSE actors’. As a follow up to the GSEF2016 held in Montreal, post forum will provide an ample opportunity to discuss the status of social economy development in Korea and future development strategies. The post GSEF2016 forum will invite leading global social economy networks, researchers, civil society organisations as well as key partners from Seoul and Montreal. Confirmed speakers are (but not limited to) Jongik Jang (Hansin University), Hamish Jenkins (UN-NGLS, UNTFSSE), Cecile Vergier (Chantier Economie Sociale, C.I.T.I.E.S), Yvon Poirer (RIPESS), Taein Jung (Karl Polanyi Research Institute Asia).

Full details of the post GSEF2016 forum programme and the final list of speakers will be available at the GSEF website soon.

The call for Good Practice for the 2017 REVES Excellence Award is now open. REVES (European Network of Cities & Regions for the Social Economy) Award 2017 is the third edition of the initiative to identify and reward best working examples of partnership between public authorities and SSE organisations for the replicable social innovation. The areas of the good practices are

• Integration of migrants/refugee
• Digital economy
• European Structural and Investment Funds (in particular the implementation of Community-Led Local Development, CLLD)
• Youth capacity building
• Child poverty and vulnerability
• Transfer of enterprises (e.g. worker buy-out phenomenon)

You can check out the complete call for good practices guide as well as a downloadable application form. Application should be sent to info@revesnetwork.eu (no later than 28th Feb 2017).

GSEF Secretary General (SG) Laurence Kwark made her business trip to the Philippines to strengthen partnership with the key institutions based in the Philippines as well as to attend the CityNet Executive Committee Meeting, RIPESS ASEC Workshop and the Local Government Academy.

GSEF Secretary General (SG) Laurence Kwark attended a CityNet’s strategic committee meeting in Makati. With the CityNet and their networks, GSEF discussed possible areas of collaboration for the coming years particularly in the field of social economy and urban development through joint efforts of utilizing two organisations’ global networks. You can download CityNet agenda paper for the meeting to check out various initiatives and discussions happening at the CityNet network. To watch a full video of the meeting, please check out the CityNet Facebook page.

RIPESS, Steering Committee member of GSEF hosted a strategic planning workshop - scaling up triple bottom line social enterprises (21~23 November) in Quezon. GSEF SG Laurence Kwark joined the session on ‘multilateral (public-private-community) partnership in promoting the Social and Solidarity Economy and shared perspectives of the GSEF by addressing the importance of focusing on urban challenges at the municipal level based on the multilateral partnership. Check out further details of the ASEC strategic planning workshop.

SG Laurence Kwark also payed a visit to the Local Government Academy (LGA) and was greeted by executive director Marivel C. Sacendoncillo. The two parties have discussed areas of cooperation for the Philippines local governments to adopt social economy for the sustainable urban development tool as well as capacity building for the elected municipal representatives and public officers. The Local Government Academy (LGA) of the Philippines was established in the 1988 is a public agency responsible for the human resource development and training of local government officials. You can check out various programmes offered by the LGA at their website.

A story about Seong Sim Dang which is widely regarded by Korean people as one of the three best bakeries of the nation has been published as a book titled ‘Seong Sim Dang - the bakery we loved’. Renowned economist Luigino Bruni, Professor in Economics at Lofiano Sofia University in Italy praised the bakery by introducing it as the prime example of the Economy of Communion (EoC) and stated that “if there are 100 small and medium sized companies that are based on the management and philosophy of Seong Sim Dang, the entire structure of the Korean Economy can be shifted”.

Seong Sim Dang is donating one third of breads they produce for poor people in the community and 15% profits of the bakery directly go to its employees. The management and operation of the factories and the bakeries are cooperatively managed by the owner and employees. Also, 40% of performance evaluation of employees are about ‘how they cherish their co-workers’.

As part of the Focolare Movement, the notion of the Economy of Communion (EoC) was firstly founded by Chiara Lubich in 1991. EoC promotes a practice and an economic culture imprinted on communion, gratuity, reciprocity and proposes an alternative lifestyle to the dominant capitalist market system.

EoC highlights importance of the culture of giving for the profits to those excluded and marginalised in society and suffer from hunger. It also values enterprise that are managed by in harmony of workers and the community.

Seong Sim Dang does not simply donate the breads to poor and distribute their profits to employees as if sharing company stocks, but their philosophical values the communion between employees and community. Seong Sim Dang has been nominated as the No.1 local company that university graduates in the Daejeon area want to work for. As of 2016, the bakery hires more than 400 employees and annual profits are over 40 billion Korean Won (equivalent to 34 million USD).

For further details for the bakery checked out the publisher’s website (available only in Korean).

‘SIB international conference 2016 - paradigm shift in public policy and investment’, will be held in Seoul. Seoul as the first Asian city utilizing SIB for social policy will invite some of the leading experts in the field. Speakers including Arthur Wood (Total Impact Capital), Jeremy Keele (Utah University), Andrea Phillips (Maycom Capital, former Goldman Sachs vice president) and other leading Korean institutions operating in the field will address different aspects of SIBs and its implications for the public policy.

For further details of the forum, visit the SIB2016 website (available only in Korean)

Slovakia which holds the presidency in the Council of the European Union is hosting an international conference on the Social Economy and Social Enterprise in Bratislava. The central theme of the conference is on ‘how to stimulate the development of social enterprises in Europe’. The aim is to give both a national and European dimension on the subject of social economy and social enterprises through the specific contribution of the speakers as well as the profile of the invited participants.

The conference will be divided by six thematic workshops. Also the conference will discuss the recommendations of the GECES report, which was approved by the 11th GECES (Expert Group on Social Entrepreneurship) European Commission meeting last October in Brussel.

The conference will be attended by 200 representatives of EU member states and experts on the social economy and social enterprises. For further details of the event, check out the SK EU 2016 website.

In conjunction with the MEDA 2016 forum (Mediterranean Week of Economic Leaders), the 1st Mediterranean Social Economy Forum will be held in Barcelona, Spain on the third day of the MEDA week. In the Mediterranean region, the Social Economy (SE) represents more than 900,000 organisations, 150 million of actors and 9 million of jobs. The partnership between public-private has in the promoting the SE has contributed to region to tackle various regional challenges such as unemployment, imbalance in regional development and environmental degradation.

The 1st Meda Social Economy Forum will provide an opportunity to explore the possibilities of SE for the development of the region. Ministers of Spain, Morocco and Presidents of the Office of Chamber of Spain and leading experts will present their insights on the region.

For further details of the forum as well as with other forums happening during the week, please check out the MEDA week 2016 website.

GSEF member PhilSEN (Phillipine Social Enterprise Network) in collaboration with Ateneo de Manila University and FSSI (Foundation for a Sustainable Society Institute) is hosting the 7th National Social Entrepreneurship Conference on understanding and measuring impact of social entrepreneurship. The central theme of the conference is on ‘making social enterprise impact measurement matter to the 2030 agenda for sustainable development’. The conference will draw from various case studies of social enterprises based in the Philippines their social impact measurement tools in particular.
You can register for the conference at: http://tinyurl.com/7thSESummitReg For further details of the conference, please contact at: natlseconference@gmail.com or emarasigan@ateneo.edu.

The SEFORIS conference - a conversation with social entrepreneurs and international academics conducing worldwide largest panel study of social enterprises, will be held in Birmingham this December in Birmingham. The central theme of the conference will be on ‘insights from & for social entrepreneurs: global patterns, local realities. The aim of the conference is to identify and share best practices of how social enterprises can address challenges of governance, finance, innovation and scaling based on the SEFORIS’ research on social enterprises across 10 countries. The key findings of the research of 8 European countries including UK, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Hungary, Romania and Belgium as well as two non-European countries such as Russia and Chain. Various researchers and experts in the field from the targeted countries will present their key findings and insights.

For further details and registration of the conference, please visit the Aston Business School website.

You can also access to the SEFORIS’ country reports 2016 as well as their cross-country reports at the SEFORIS EU website.