As the year reaching its end, it is a time for expressing our gratitude and appreciation to the members of GSEF community striving hard to make this world a more sustainable and equitable place elsewhere. Retrospectively, the year 2016 marked with GSEF2016 Montreal has opened a new chapter for the global efforts of promoting Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) by gathering 1,500 participants from around the globe to discuss effective partnership between local governments and SSE actors for social progress. The momentum of GSEF forums for harnessing SSE as a crucial vehicle for sustainable development will be continued from Seoul (2013, 2014) to Montreal (2016) and to Bilbao (2018). In addition to our biannual forums, GSEF Secretariat and C.I.T.I.E.S which is the International Centre for Knowledge Transfer on SSE will promote knowledge exchanges in between the forums. 

As organisation of GSEF2016 by Chantier l'économie Sociale and the City of Montreal demonstrated, without the cooperation and active interaction with the partners, global projects of GSEF cannot be actualized. We kindly invite all GSEF community members to continue their support and involvement for our projects in 2017. Next year, we are preparing exciting initiatives with GSEF members and with international organizations such as ILO (International Labor Organization) and UNRISD (United Nations Research Institute for Social Development) we will regularly update and unfold the progress of our projects for the year 2017. 

Thank you for your continuing support for the GSEF and we would like to send our very best wishes for all SSE actors’ endeavors of making this world a better place.

May the peace and joy of the holiday season stay with GSEF community for the coming year. 

Thank you.   

GSEF hosted an international conference on innovative partnerships for fostering SSE in Seoul. The conference was organised 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 UN 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 (UN Sustainable Development Goals)

C.I.T.I.E.S (Cecile Vergier, Project Manager) presented the projects of C.I.T.I.E.S with key partner cities such as Quebec, Basque, Barcelona and Seoul to enhance mutualisation of knowledge and experience and the efforts to transfer at the international level. The three speakers also had a round table 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 Economy Centre (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 GSEF website.