Colloquium highlights Social Economy as answer to poverty

Date: Sep 4, 2013 | News

​​​​Trevor Manual, Minister in the Presidency: National Planning Commission, will address a Colloquium on the state of Social Economy of South Africa on 4 September 2013. Hosted by the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Social Economy (CSESE), the two day colloquium aims to explore ways in how the National Development Plan (NDP) can contribute to social economic growth in South Africa.​

The NDP was implemented to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by 2030. Social Economy is a third sector economy that creates employment and can play a crucial role in eliminating poverty. The colloquium draws delegates from various fields such as academics, social economy organisations, impact investors and government, and will stimulate conversations amongst stakeholders regarding the challenges facing social economy in South Africa.

“The CSESE colloquium is a catalyst to get recognition for this important sector of the our economy – we create 10% of all jobs according to international standards, yet we do not have a dedicated ministry such as that of the United Kingdom who has a Minister of the Third Sector.”, says Dr Susan Steinman, Colloquium organiser and Director: CSESE. “Policies related to the sector are fragmented and implementation is problematic – there is too little examples of collaborative impact and coordination of activities. There is hardly any mention of the jobs that can be created in this sector. We need a more organised sector.”

According to Steinman the main objective will be to hand over a colloquium declaration to the National Planning Commission with suggestions to take forward and to consider. These will include:

• Policy and Regulatory Framework for the social economy
• Education and Job Creation within the social economy
• Policy governing tax and financing within the social economy
• Implementation of policy related to the social economy
• Implementation and championing​​