Key determinants

• Financial resources are needed to set up and manage the CitESS. The model foresees a mixed economic model drawing resources from public financing, funds from international cooperation donors (i.e. EU Commission) as well as invoicing of support services offered to SSE actors. The public local/national funding or international cooperation funding that CitESS intercepts is put at the services of its territory, therefore allowing a strategic channelling and redistribution of resources towards local SSE initiatives which, in turn, allow for greater economic and social returns to the benefit of the community as a whole.

• Human resources and personal skills of engaged and truly motivated individuals are key to a successful, wide, and participatory CiteESS set-up and management. The latter builds on crucial human skills, such as active listening, communication skills, facilitation skills, adaptability and flexibility, openness, mediation skills, leadership, long-term vision and interpersonal skills.

• Influential and strongly motivated political leaders that can steer the process leading to the CitESS set-up. Better if not representing public administrations or institutions, these leaders have to be personally involved and really interested in the process, highly committed, and sufficiently charismatic to animate the discussion table.

• All key economic hard infrastructures needed by the SSE actors to be operative, such as the marketplace, transportation and communication infrastructures, power grid and water supply network, etc., allowing them to produce, purchase and exchange resources, products, and services.

• Existing basic public, private or civil society entrepreneurial support programs/services should already be in place for CitESS model to be experimented in a given territory. By its own nature, CitESS primarily catalyses, connects, leverages, and improves existing resources and support programs for the local SSE, albeit it can promote also new services. In fact, while CitESS is not meant to be primarily a direct support service provider, it is indeed a platform facilitating the integration and co-production of support services as well as strategic matchmaking with actors in need for such services.

• All services needed by the SSE actors to be operative in their market: i.e. commercial services, transport and export logistics, informatics, legal and technical support, research and development, patent and licencing, advertising.

Self-assessment questions

1. Are there financial resources coming from public financing and international cooperation donors that can be intercepted to set up and manage the CitESS, and channelled by the latter toward local SSE initiatives? Moreover, which missing SSE support services can be offered to SSE actors to also secure CitESS self-financing income?
2. Who are the right individuals in your territory to engage in a wide and participatory process for the set-up and management of a CitESS? Do they have the necessary skills and motivation to dialogue, collaborate and connect with other key stakeholders of the ecosystem?
3. Is there an influential and strongly motivated political person that can take up the leading role throughout the overall process of setting up the CitESS?
4. Can SSE actors in your context count on existing and functioning key economic hard infrastructures to be operative? (i.e. marketplace, transportation and communication infrastructures, power grid and water supply network)
5. Are there basic public, private, or civil society support programs/services for entrepreneurs in your territory? Are they effective? Where do entrepreneurs in your territory turn to when needing support for the ideation, start-up, development, scaling-up and sustainability of their enterprises?
6. Which are the key services your SSE actors need to be operative? Are they available in your context? (i.e. commercial services, transport and export logistics, informatics, legal and technical support, research and development, patent and licencing, advertising)