The Ministry of Labor establishes a pioneering hub for the social economy.

The Second Vice President and Minister of Labor and Social Economy, Yolanda Díaz, announced today the creation of the first Cutting-Edge Hub of the Social Economy, a reference point that will boost the sector through knowledge, innovative projects, and international dissemination.

The initiative was presented to the executive committee of the Spanish Business Conference of the Social Economy (CEPES) held in Madrid. Previously, the council of ministers approved the Royal Decree for the creation of this Hub, one of the objectives of the Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation (PERTE) of the Social Economy and Care. Ten ministries led by the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy are involved in this project.

“Today is a very important day for the Spanish Social Economy,” emphasized the vice president, who also revealed that the physical location of the hub will be in Donostia. The Basque city will be “the global reference point of the Social Economy,” added Díaz, thanking regional authorities and Social Economy entities for their support in transforming Donostia and Spain into the world capital of this sector.

This new center will have an economic allocation of 1.5 million euros from European funds of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, corresponding to Investment 6 of Component 23 of the Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan (PRTR).

The Cutting-Edge Hub of the Social Economy will include a research center where public policies in social economy will be evaluated, and their role in reducing inequalities and creating a more inclusive labor market will be investigated. In addition, it will establish a knowledge exchange network between companies, institutions, social organizations, and academics to disseminate best practices. Finally, it will host a laboratory of innovative projects with the aim of expanding the Social Economy and promoting collective entrepreneurship without neglecting the sector’s competitiveness.

“This hub will allow us to collectively address the main challenges of our time,” Díaz remarked, emphasizing the importance of training in Social Economy to focus research in the service of social justice and the common good. The vice president highlighted that this business approach creates “a sustainable economic fabric rooted in the territory, which is also more feminist and inclusive.”

From CEPES, which brings together most of the 43,000 companies that make up the Spanish Social Economy sector, this investment will be channeled, with the collaboration of the Basque Government, the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council, the City of Donostia, the Federation of Cooperatives of Euskadi, the Superior Council of Cooperatives of Euskadi, and the University of Mondragón, leader of the project along with the other universities involved.

This project seeks to make visible and internationalize the Spanish model of Social Economy, which represents 10% of the GDP and generates more than 2 million jobs (direct and indirect). This way of developing a productive fabric, which emphasizes the equitable distribution of benefits, has been endorsed by international institutions such as the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the OECD, and promoted by the United Nations and the European Union, under the leadership of the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy.

“The hub is the result of the prioritization that this Ministry has made for the Social Economy, perhaps for the first time in forty years of democracy,” concluded the minister.

via: MiMub in Spanish

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