Project Starting Date: 18 May 2016
Project End Date: 17 November 2017
Project Budget: € 647.300,00
Contractor: EPTISA Southeast Europe DOO (RS) in consortium with OSB Consulting GmbH (AT), Expertise France (FR) and EPTISA Servicio de Indenieria SL (ES)
Final Beneficiary: Ministry of Labour and Social Policy (MLSP)
Overall objective:
To improve the inclusiveness of the labour market by creating new jobs opportunities through stimulation of social economic initiatives.
Purpose:
To help develop social entrepreneurship in the country by:
1. building/implementing the right ecosystem for social entrepreneurship; and
2. fostering already established social businesses by providing to them corporate-support services.
Expected Results:
– Policy measures to foster development of social entrepreneurship elaborated/refined;
– Capacities of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy regarding its tasks to create, monitor and promote social entrepreneurship strengthened;
– Financial instrument(s) to support social entrepreneurship developed and capacities of the providers strengthened;
– At least 10 social businesses provided with tailored made corporate solutions.
Target groups:
- Relevant staff of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy and other ministries, governmental agencies, such as Employment Service Agency, Agency for Support of Entrepreneurship, NGOs, academics, schools, local training providers, local authorities, business consultants, social partners, financial institutions and other relevant stakeholders;
- Young persons aged 15 – 29 (especially young graduates).
Key project activities:
COMPONENT 1: Strengthening capacity for implementation of social entrepreneurship legislation and creating a favorable eco-system for social enterprises
- Supporting MLSP and other relevant stakeholders in developing a set of policy measures for promoting and providing support to social enterprises
a. Sharing experiences and good practices with other countries;
b. Developing set of measures for supporting development of social enterprises and social innovation in cooperation with all relevant stakeholders (e.g. Employment Service Agency, Agency for Support of Entrepreneurship, tax authority, local training providers, business consultants/incubators, financial institutions). The measures should enable:
· access to finance;
· access to information, training and expert advice for start and running of social business.
c. Testing part of the proposed measures and sharing and discussing the results from the piloting among Ministry and stakeholders;
d. Developing tools for monitoring the policy measures for social entrepreneurship and training of the relevant staff in MLSP to apply the tools;
e. Establishing mechanisms for systematic gathering of data on social entrepreneurship initiatives to inform policy.
- Preparing proposals for reforming and/or further improving the legislation for social entrepreneurship and other related regulation;
- Developing and improving methodology and coaching of the relevant staff in MLSP for monitoring the fulfillment of the legal requirements by the established social enterprises in line with the regulation for social entrepreneurship;
- Developing and implementing training plan for MLSP, other relevant institutional actors and local authorities regarding their role in implementing the social entrepreneurship regulation and policy measures;
- Assisting public and private institutions (financial institutions, other institutions authorized to provide microfinance loans/guarantees) in development and implementation of a suitable financial instrument(s) for financing creation, growth and survival of social enterprise. Additionally, interested public and private institutions will be helped to apply for becoming microcredit provider(s) under the EaSi Programme;
- Developing tools for exchanges and dissemination of good practice, innovative approaches and experience; organizing peer reviews and mutual learning among social enterprises, NGOs and other relevant stakeholders;
- Designing and implementing activities to encourage social entrepreneurship amongst young people in cooperation with schools, universities and/or other relevant (youth) organizations. These activities could include practical trainings or mentoring of interested students or graduates in developing their ventures;
- Developing paper with recommendations for further promotion of social entrepreneurship.
COMPONENT 2: Support to the existing social enterprises
- Identifying minimum 10 interested organizations which operate de facto as social enterprises that will receive customized support for the project duration. The organizations will be identified and selected on the basis of fair and transparent selection criteria and procedures;
- Performing review of every aspect of work of the selected enterprises and agreeing on area(s) for which the expertise is needed;
- Providing direct support to the selected social enterprises according to their needs for the project duration by using local business advisory structures where possible;
- Assisting in development of strategy for each of the assisted social enterprises for the next 2 years following the project’s end;
- Disseminating the achievements of component 2 to other organizations that could benefit (Among other, the activity should be implemented by using the tools developed in activity 1.6).