Category:MedTOWN

MedTOWN: Co-producing social policies with SSE actors to fight poverty, inequality, and social exclusion

MedTOWN project.

Context

Public services face an unprecedented set of challenges: increasing demand, rising expectations, seemingly intractable social problems, and, in many cases, reduced budgets. In Europe, previous approaches have produced important improvements in some areas but failed to tackle the structural inequalities that are fuelling the demand for services. In the Arab world, heterogeneous and fractured social structures, along with occupational shifts from agricultural to industrial and service activities, are overstretching already weak social services schemes that fail to address the real drivers of poverty, inequality, and exclusion. MedTOWN is an initiative focused on the combined potential of agents of the social and solidarity economy (SSE), citizens, and local authorities to co-produce the social policies that can fight poverty, inequality, social exclusion, and environmental unsustainability, providing them with tools and connections to build local resilience and foster the transition towards more fair, resilient and sustainable societies in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

Objectives

MedTOWN will provide with tailored capacity building for SSE agents, innovative and low-cost tools for practitioners, and networking opportunities. This will be implemented through an open policy dialogue aimed at strengthening the Mediterranean region's role in the development and implementation of policy actions towards the development of quality, more user-friendly, and empowering social services. Social experimentation based on the use of complementary currencies for the delivery of financial aid to vulnerable communities will be carried out.

Useful links to know more about MedTOWN

• MedTOWN Project description
• MedTOWN YouTube channel