On 30th April, EVPA hosted a free webinar on the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), which will support investments in the social future of Europe from 2021 to 2027.
Lack of access to finance for social economy actors is presented as a significant obstacle to business creation in the ESF+ regulation. Therefore, social investors are acknowledged to play a key role in achieving several ESF+ objectives by offering capital and innovative approaches to several social issues.
During this webinar, we found out how the ESF+ will work, which role the EU Member States can play, and how the resources can help to boost the social economy across the European Union. Moreover, we heard how the ESF+ will differentiate from its long-standing predecessor ESF, and what were the lessons learnt from the past in order to face the challenges lying ahead.
Agenda:
Download our Policy Brief on ESF+
Download the slides here
João Machado - Portugal Social Innovation
João Machado joined the Government Initiative ‘Portugal Social Innovation’ (Portugal Inovação Social) in the beginning of 2017 and he was tasked with the implementation of the Social Innovation Fund. As one of the four finance streams of this initiative, the Social Innovation Fund was launched in 2019 as the first public impact investment fund in Portugal with a budget of more than 80M€.
Aleksandra Dmitruk - European Social Fund Department, Ministry of Investments and Economic Development in Poland
Aleksandra Dmitruk is a deputy director in the European Social Fund Department in the Ministry of Investments and Economic Development in Poland. She is responsible for financial management of ESF co-financed programmes.
Andrea Leruste - European Commission
Andrea Leruste works for the European Commission’s Directorate-General (DG) for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, where she is deputy head of Unit for ESF & FEAD policy and legislation.
Bianca Polidoro - EVPA
Bianca is EVPA’s Senior Policy and EU Partnerships Manager and member of the the European Commission’s Expert Group on Social Economy and Social Enterprises (GECES). She joined EVPA in February 2019. She leads the EVPA Policy’s team, which monitors and analyses key policy developments relevant to the VP/SI sector, and implements the multi-annual policy strategy of EVPA. She represents EVPA’s community towards EU authorities (EC, EIB, EIF etc.), as well as other multilateral bodies.
Tessa Van Autreve - EVPA
Tessa Van Autreve joined the policy department at EVPA in May 2019. She holds a MSc in Sustainable Finance from Maastricht University and a BSc in Business Administration from KU Leuven.
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