Existing situation, challenges, barriers and missed opportunities in development of Social economy in Slovenia

Theme 7: “Social Economy development in different world regions”

Title: “Existing situation, challenges, barriers and missed opportunities in development of Social economy in Slovenia”

Methodology

The paper intends to analyse at first the existing situation on SE sector in Slovenia, key groups of actors direct and indirect, and level of their integration, vertically or horizontally, the performance indicators, compared to some best practice countries and Regions. At the end the paper will deal with policy recommendations to boost up social entrepreneurship in Slovenia. The paper will be divided in 4 chapters plus Foreword, Introduction, Conclusion and Bibliography; in terms of weight 60% of the paper stays on core chapters: II, III, IV.

Structure

• Introduction

Our aim is to present existing situation of state of arts of SE in Slovenia compared to e practices in other Member States and tools used for a coherent development of social economy sector thus contributing to European objectives in the area of job creation and social cohesion. Is there a new Nordic model of Social economy arising?

• Chapter I: Networking and Public private Partnership as winning tools for Modern Social Economy

In this chapter, a short basic theoretical background of Regional Social Economics, which support the basis of discussion and its understanding in a frame of Slovenian economic development context, will be presented, as well as basic difference in approaching SE development in different EU regions.

• Chapter II: The case study: Slovenia

In this chapter of development of SE in Slovenia highlighting positive and negative side effects and its impact of “transition country mindset” will be analysed, followed by existing SE situation analysis with key performance indicators, revision of existing legal, institutional environment, networking and partnership based system as well as describing variety of legal forms which could be defined in a broaden concept of social economy in Slovenia. Short Best Practices at a glance will be also introduced in order to stimulate attention of the Reader on the key importance of the matter: proper support environment, networking and partnership as key success factors of Social Economy.

• Chapter III: Benchmarking SE performance: Italy, UK, Poland VS Slovenia

In this chapter, attention will be given to benchmarking model, by introducing some key quali-quantitative Social Economy performance indicators, comparing Slovenia, Italy, UK and Poland in terms of history, economic indicators, indicators of support environment, sectors, services, employees, etc… .
It will include SWOT analysis as basis for policy recommendations to be elaborated in chapter IV.

• Chapter IV: Recommendations for SLO policy makers to boost up the Social Economy in Slovenia with the aim to better respond to global economic crises

In this chapter, the “5 Best Policies” proposals for potential Policy Makers of Slovenia and others as sampling for Central and Southern Eastern Europe models, will come out from the both combination and matching of previous chapters results; the “5 Best Policies (or Group of Policies)” in order to create a synergic effect of planned integrated increasing policies; strong emphasis will be given to the cultural side of the system to be designed, due to the specific Country’s characteristics.

• Conclusions

To summarize findings with particular focus on recommendations for strengthening the visibility of the sector and its role in future socio-economic development, as well as recommendations of tolls and policies to be used by different levels of political authorities (local, regional, national and European) to boost up the SE sector in the scope of the Lisbon Strategy and active inclusion priorities Is there a scope for empowerment of SE through better EU networking?
• Bibliography

o HAZL Vanja, Lužar Duška, KOVAČ Zdenka, Uvajanje socialnega podjetništva v Sloveniji, Zaključno poročilo s predlogi projektov, SVLR,2005 o Existing Situation and Potential Development to Networking and Partnership of Actors Related to Social Economy: A Model Case for Slovenia to be Compared With a Best Practice Case in EU: The region of Veneto, Itaily – by Davide Branco and Zdenka Kovač,OECD –LEED Trento, 2005 o Uvajanje socialnega podjetništva v Sloveniji - PRIMERJALNA ŠTUDIJA: ITALIJA, AVSTRIJA, SLOVENIJA - by Davide Branco et al, PCMG, 2004 o Branco Davide, Bob Doherty, Janusz Reichel, Zdenka Kovac, Training needs analysis on SE Sector, Synthethic report on 4 participating countries, Leonardo, 2007 o ŠTUDIJA OBSTOJEČEGA STANJA NA PODROČJU SOCIALNE EKONOMIJE V SLOVENIJI - s priporočili za pripravo modela uvajanja socialnega podjetništva - by Dusanka Luzar et al., SVLR,2003 o Study on Practices and Policies in the Social Enterprise Sector in Europe, Austrian Institute for SME Research and TSE Entre, Turku School of Economics, Finland, Vienna 2007