Peer Review on ‘Social entrepreneurship to tackle unmet social challenges’, Oslo, Norway, 12 and 13 December 2017

In Norway, the growth of social entrepreneurship and social innovation has primarily been driven by individuals, enterprises and investors. Political interest in the field was demonstrated in 2011 with the establishment of a grant for social entrepreneurs who target their initiatives at combating poverty and social exclusion. The government that took office in autumn 2013 stated in its political platform that it would improve the conditions for using social entrepreneurs and the voluntary sector in the welfare system. Currently there are several ongoing initiatives to improve the conditions for social entrepreneurs, such as an inter-service working group consisting of nine ministries or a research project to assess framework conditions and schemes for supporting social entrepreneurship.

This Peer Review will provide the opportunity to discuss into more detail three key issue to develop social entrepreneurship to tackle poverty and social exclusion:

•         Cooperation between actors: How can social entrepreneurs, academia, municipal and governmental actors work together to develop measures to support social entrepreneurship?.

·        Target group involvement: How to best enable people that have experienced poverty and social exclusion to take part in social entrepreneurship, ensuring that schemes are well-targeted and efficient? The focus here will be on social entrepreneurship aimed at children and young people at risk of poverty and social exclusion and support for labour market integration of those furthest from the labour market.

·        Public support and schemes: How can we ensure that public support and schemes for social entrepreneurship are effective and efficient?

The Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs is hosting this event and is looking to exchange lessons learned, good and innovative practices with participants from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta.

All documents related to this event, including host country discussion, thematic and peer country comments papers/presentations as well as the short and synthesis report will be available on this website soon after the event has taken place.