Through the ResilientES project, UCOMUR is implementing the Guide to Supporting Cooperatives and the Social Economy in the Region of Murcia in rural areas
- The guide, which was launched last May, will enable the organisation, in collaboration with various local stakeholders, to continue promoting the creation of social economy enterprises in rural and inland areas
- The organisation invited local action groups – a key component of Resilient-ES – to the launch, with a view to further integrating cooperatives and the social economy into the local ecosystem
With the aim of continuing to facilitate business creation and job creation within the cooperative and social economy sectors, Ucomur presented the Guide to Supporting Cooperativism and the Social Economy in the Region of Murcia on 25 May. This detailed document explains what entrepreneurship entails, how to bring a business project to life and, above all, how to do so in the form of a social economy enterprise.
The document, which is now an essential resource for anyone wishing to start a business in the Region of Murcia, contains useful information on the various legal structures within the social economy, as well as detailing the different aid and grant schemes available, the incentives and financial instruments available to these enterprises, and the benefits of embracing collective entrepreneurship, with a particular focus on the cooperative model, represented by Ucomur.
It also includes a section that explores strategic public procurement in favour of social economy enterprises, applicable to all contracting authorities.
With a view to further integrating cooperativism and the Social Economy into the local ecosystem, the Union of Cooperatives invited representatives from the various local action groups, as well as other organisations representing the regional Social Economy, representatives from the various regional universities and, of course, municipal officials and policy-makers from the regional administration. The aim: to continue engaging the various stakeholders in driving and promoting the social economy, including in rural areas, as part of the INTERREG SUDOE Resilient-Es project (co-funded by the European Union).
This initiative, of which Ucomur is a part, aims to “revitalise the non-urban, rural and inland territories of SUDOE (south-western European countries: Spain, France and Portugal) with the social economy (SE) as the driving force for socio-economic development, based on the endogenous resources of these territories and collaboration between local stakeholders to generate quality jobs, guarantee access to services and retain the population”. That is why the involvement of local action groups in such a high-profile launch as that of the Guide to Supporting Cooperatives and the Social Economy represents a further step towards the objective of creating a common strategy to boost entrepreneurship in the social economy and to test concrete measures on the ground that demonstrate that the model works in rural areas.