The second Spanish round table took place in Seville, on Wednesday 8th November 2023, on 'Tools for sustainable consumption, social and sustainable economy (SSE) and co-production to improve people’s lives in Mediterranean countries: the European project MedTOWN'.

Asamblea de Cooperación por la Paz (ACPP), lead beneficiary of the project, organised the event at the Palacio de los Marqueses de la Algaba, located in the Andalusian capital, as part of the Spanish closing events on four-year project’s impact.

The round table was raised as a dynamic meeting with the objective of disseminating the tools developed within MedTOWN project and linking them to other innovative initiatives also launched and focus on sustainable consumption, co-production or social and solidarity economy (SSE).

After the welcome speech and introduction to the project tools by Georgia Karavangeli, MedTOWN project’s director in ACPP, practitioners in charge presented different tools and initiatives developed. Lorenzo Fuentesal explained Clickoin's technological solutions for the digital management of SSE and sustainable consumption, used through Tier1 in MedTOWN project’s activities, as local currency experience in Seville (Andalusia, Spain), time banks in Campolide (Lisbon, Portugal), QR cash assistance in Beitillo (West Bank, Palestine) or the technological response for Community of Practice.

Israel Sánchez spoke about the co-production initiatives of Consorcio Andaluz de Impulso Social (CAIS), an Andalusian service-oriented network to promote social impulse; and Lola Sanjuán described the new digital tool WeCoop Mujeres ESS, an innovative project to highlight women's contributions to social and solidarity economy in Spain, developed by CKL Comunicaciones Coop.

The following interventions were focused on the role of public institutions in making public-private co-production work to provide important social services for citizenship.   Samuel Barco, from Diesis Network, discussed the role of research in co-construction with SSE; Rafael García Matíes, from Musol Foundation in Valencia, analysed the municipal cooperation to support SSE projects; and David Pino, from Andalucía Emprende – the Andalusian public foundation to foster entrepreneurship, shared his experience in supporting European projects to local innovation initiatives.

After speakers’ interventions, it was confirmed that MedTOWN project has enabled to raise awareness of the social and solidarity economy among public institutions and to show the model of co-production as a useful option to provide services to Mediterranean communities.

Other ideas also discussed, were:

- rethinking the organizations’ culture

- providing a better technological response to the different projects carried out

- generating cohesion, alliances, trust and cooperation between partners and organisations involved in the social and solidarity economy

- empowering people and enabling them to recognise themselves in others

- growing through replication and scalability and providing resilience tools

- and above all, there was time to analyse, speakers and participants, how these projects contribute to improve people’s lives in Mediterranean countries.

Professor Rogerio Roque Amaro concluded the event by raising issues to be discussed in the future through new projects to continue MedTOWN’s progress: difference between SSE and SE, added value of SE if it is not solidarity, SSE not only anthropocentric but also with nature, a new adjective beyond social to include all-encompassing, and solidarity as a concept adding the ethical facet.

The conclusions will be available in the Mediterranean Social Innovation Lab, developed in the framework of MedTOWN project.

The second Spanish round table was part of the Social Innovation Week in Seville, which hosted a range of closing events after four year of implementation of MedTOWN, European project co-financed by ENI CBC Med Programme.

MedTOWN project has focused on the co-production of social policies with social economy actors to combat poverty, inequality and social exclusion. It takes place in six countries: Spain, Greece, Palestine, Jordan, Tunisia and Portugal.

More info on MedTOWN project, here 

More info on the event, here

Programme, here

Press release on Spanish round table, here

Press release on Social Innovation Week in Seville, here