The World Forum on Social and Solidarity Economy, GSEF2016, took place in Montreal last September (2016) under the following slogan “Local Governments and actors of the Social Economy. Allied for the development of smart and sustainable cities“. The GSEF concluded with a Declaration, and also with the announcement of the creation of the CITIES project, International Centre for Innovation and knowledge transfer in social and solidarity economy.

The Center, based in Montreal, is setting up an international team of professionals in processes of transfer. At this stage it includes the cities of Seoul, Barcelona and Bilbao (who is hosting the next GSEF meeting in 2018).

RIPESS supports GSEF association and its mission to foster collaboration between local governments and civil society. C.I.T.I.E.S. will have the mission of facilitating the dissemination and transfer of practices and knowledge in the field of social and solidarity economy at international level.
As a reminder, RIPESS has been a member of the GSEF since September 2016, and vice versa.

We will publish the services offered by C.I.T.I.E.S, “an international and collaborative offer for the development of SSE”, as soon as it becomes available in the different RIPESS languages. This offer will describe how C.I.T.I.E.S. will promote the scaling-up of SSE initiatives and foster more inclusive and effective policies, as well as its collaborative, action-oriented approach, methodology and adapted activities.

A website is being prepared and will be online in the spring for the Metropolis Congress in June 2017.

In the meantime, please visit the CITIES temporary website, where you can sign up for updates on the progress of the project, as well as make contributions.