Poland: Public – private partnerships to foster the social economy

On the 18th,19th and 20th of October 2007 in Warsaw, the Second National Meeting on Social Economy will take place. The meeting will be held under the patronage of Warsaw?s Mayor, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, and the Polish Minister for Regional Development, Grażyna Gęsicka.

The Meeting on Social Economy is the biggest Polish event directed at people involved in social economy, public administration, practitioners and theoreticians. The meetings are a place of a debate on the current condition and trends of developments of social economy in Poland. The aim of the meetings are: integration of the environments interested and involved in the issue, exchange of experiences and developments of recommendations for social economy bodies and decision-makers.

The leading theme of this year Meeting on Social Economy is the application of social economy tools in the stimulation of social-economic development at regional and local levels. The stress will be placed on public-private partnerships.

The meetings will take place on the 18th, 19th and 20th of October in Warsaw. The main language of the meetings will be Polish.

On the first day of the Meeting, there will be a seminar in the premises of Ministry of Work and Public Policy, entitled The cooperation of public administration with the sector of social economy ? a new form of cooperation: public-social-private partnership. This seminar will be for the representatives of local governments. The aim of this session is to show the local government representatives the advantages of partnerships between public, social and private institutions. The guests from abroad will present the examples of such partnerships in their regions as well as opportunities for international cooperation. The Polish situation and possibilities will be discussed as well. The speakers will discuss the formal and legal issues related to cooperation between local governments and nonprofit organizations. The session will also create an opportunity to meet representatives from other local governments, network and exchange experiences. The invited specialists and experts will be answering questions asked by local government representatives who are willing to start cooperation with nonprofit organizations acting in their regions.

On the second day of the Meeting there will be a conference closely connected with the theme of this years Meeting, that is, the application of social economy tools in the stimulation of social-economic development at regional and local levels. Among the participants of a set of seminars and workshops there will be representatives of the Polish social economy and nonprofit sectors, local governments as well as foreign guests ? practitioners of social economy abroad. One of planned results of those seminars is the development of the special Manifesto of Social Economy. The conference will take place in one Warsaw cinema with cosy atmosphere.

The third and last day of the Second Meeting on Social Economy will be devoted to the Fair of Social Economy. Thirty selected social enterprises from the whole of Poland will present their products and services to inhabitants of Warsaw and all participants of the Meeting. At the same time, the participants of the Meetings will have an opportunity to visit a few social enterprises located in Warsaw and nearby.

The first Meetings on Social Economy took place in Krakow (cultural capital of Poland), a year ago, in September 2006.