The SOCIEUX+ Facility: “Little by little, a community of experts is being created"

As Catherine Barme, coordinator of the facility’s Employment and Labor section explains, SOCIEUX+ operates “upon request”: “SOCIEUX+ is an original system, set up to help mobilize experts from the Member States of the European Union. We adapt to the needs of the institutions that ask for our help. It’s a very flexible instrument, capable of responding swiftly to a specific need.”  

Tailor-made solutions

“Our actions cover a broad range of fields, including economic and social issues, organization of professional sectors, support for workers, and back-up for institutions that create links between economic development and professional insertion,” says Thierry Fiquet, technical and development adviser for the Employment and Labor section. “But SOCIEUX+ is not a ‘one-solution-fits-all’ facility,” he adds. For example, the technical support it provides can involve legislative or regulatory changes, drafting a new public policy, developing organizations or tools, training the staff of partner institutions, or other aid.

Employment and labor policies are a core focus of SOCIEUX+, especially with regard the informal sector, which represents up to 90% of workers in Africa. “Formalizing the informal economy is a key issue in those policies, especially with regard to precarious workers and vulnerable populations,” explains Catherine Barme. Other focuses of SOCIEUX+ include reducing gaps between labor supply and demand due to evolutions in jobs and skills, digitalization, strengthening social dialog, and dealing with the growing position and role of public employment services and vocational training systems.

The range of SOCIEUX+ actions has gradually expanded, and new priorities are emerging in the face of the current health crisis and its social and economic impacts. “Requests regarding the green economy are growing, with the need to develop green jobs and to ‘green’ existing jobs,” says Catherine Barme. “Safety and health at work, and more broadly the issue of decent work, are also a growing concern,” adds Thierry Fiquet.

And this fits in with the second aspect of the SOCIEUX+ facility, which focuses on support for setting up sustainable, effective, inclusive, and equitable social protection systems. “The top challenge is to provide all people with basic guarantees of social protection to prevent and reduce poverty, vulnerability, and social exclusion,” explains Gian Luca Portacolone, coordinator of the Social Protection section.

To meet all these challenges, SOCIEUX+ is adapting its methods for implementing technical missions to both the constraints of the current health crisis and new opportunities for technical cooperation, in particular through the use of remote support.
 

Read also: Connecting peers during the Covid-19 crisis: the SOCIEUX+ response 
 

Forging links and generating cooperation

Through its one-off and very targeted actions, SOCIEUX+ is helping to create links between various levels and types of institutions and organizations, within a single country or between countries. An example is green jobs in Peru: “We initially worked with the Ministry of Labor and the National Employment Agency, then we were approached by regional governments and finally by local organizations, particularly in the Amazon area,” says Catherine Barme. “What’s interesting is that the work carried out on that theme interested Chadian and then Togolese institutions. So, we can see that SOCIEUX+ helps create new cooperation projects,” she adds. Colombia and Uruguay are also looking into the same theme.

SOCIEUX+ can also supplement existing support or pave the way for broader support. “We work closely with international cooperation actors in the field, above all with the European Union delegations. That helps us avoid duplication of efforts,” explains Thierry Fiquet. “For example, we work with the EUROsociAL+ program in Latin America, with the Support for Employment Programme in the border and peripheral regions of Burkina Faso, and in very close coordination with the C2D project in Côte d'Ivoire financed by AFD and run by Expertise France and the French national employment office. We also work with the GIZ program YouMatch, the EU program VET-Toolbox implemented by LuxDev and Enabel, FIIAPP’s Bridging the Gap and the International Training Program of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida),” he adds, “not to mention the partnerships we have developed.”

SOCIEUX+ in fact works with a wide range of players, including the International Labour Organization (ILO), various public employment services including Pôle Emploi in France, the Brussels Regional Employment Office (ACTIRIS), SEPE in Spain, Arbetsförmedlingen in Sweden, the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), the World Association of Public Employment Services (WAPES), the DGUV (German Social Accident Insurance), and others. “Their expertise allows us to provide specialized know-how to institutions requesting support on themes that are crucial for countries’ development, and we can put those countries into networks,” says Thierry Fiquet.

North-South peer dialog

To carry out its technical assistance missions, SOCIEUX+ mobilizes mainly experts from the public sector of Member States of the European Union. “When public experts or representatives of our social partners work with SOCIEUX+, it’s an opportunity for them to diversify their professional career and at the same time obtain an enriching experience through contact with peers in other countries,” says Thierry Fiquet. “We also have the opportunity to promote triangular technical assistance that includes participation by local experts. Because they have more in-depth knowledge of the field, they can propose solutions adapted to local needs and constraints,” adds Catherine Barme.

As for the team coordinated by Expertise France, it has several roles: analyzing the need expressed by the institution requesting support, selecting the best experts to meet the request, preparing their mission, supporting them if necessary, and then evaluating their deliverables and helping to disseminate the latter to other administrations and organizations. “Little by little, a community of experts is being created. And our experts become SOCIEUX+ ambassadors. Likewise for our partners, with whom, over the course of the projects, we build a real alliance network with technical expertise,” observes Thierry Fiquet.

When SOCIEUX+ supplies support, the experts mobilized also benefit from the mission. The fact that this latter is of short duration is also practical for them, especially if they come from small organizations. As Catherine Barme explains, “Many of the experts involved have never worked abroad before, but they enjoy the experience and want to work with us again. We play an important support role, or that of ‘facilitator’, which enables them to leave reassured and to share their experiences within their own institutions. SOCIEUX+ is gradually forming a platform of expertise.”

Find out more about SOCIEUX+: socieux.eu/about

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