ESF Financial Instruments for Social Impact: The Portuguese Social Innovation Initiative

The fi-compass internal workshop ‘ESF Financial Instruments for Social Impact: The Portuguese Social Innovation Initiative’ was co-organised by the European Commission, Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion (DG EMPL), and the European Investment Bank (EIB) on 14 May 2019 in Brussels, Belgium.

This internal workshop, dedicated to European Commission staff, was aimed at raising awareness about the potential for financial instruments co-financed by the ESF to support initiatives and enterprises with measurable social impact, thus enabling the participants to pass-on the workshop’s takeaways to managing authorities across the EU and to the ESF community at large.

The Portuguese Social Innovation (PSI) Initiative case study, the pioneering initiative in this domain, has been taken as example and discussed in details by experts from DG EMPL, the EIB and Portuguese practitioners that contributed in first place to the set-up of the PSI. The presentation has delivered on the features of the PSI and its rationale, the main success factors and related bottlenecks that the Portuguese authorities have faced during the set-up and implementation of it.

The lively discussion which came along has shed light on key topics as regulatory issues, engagement of social service providers, suitable financing schemes and output setting and validation.

The managing authorities and the fi-compass community will have the opportunity to know more about this topic on 10 September 2019 in Lisbon, during the upcoming Thematic workshop on Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship.