Social Accelerator

Introduction

The Social Accelerator project is designed to strengthen social innovation ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), focusing on advancing the goals of the EU-LAC Global Gateway Investment Agenda. By strengthening innovation hubs, supporting innovative social initiatives, and facilitating financing mechanisms, the project aims to reduce structural inequalities, promote social cohesion, and enable a green, digital, and inclusive transition across the region. Through a multi-stakeholder approach involving civil society, the private sector, and other key institutions, the project prioritises women, youth, and vulnerable groups, contributing to the reduction of inequalities in the region.

Objectives

The project focuses on:

1. Enhancing social innovation ecosystems by fostering collaboration among the public sector, private sector, and civil society to reduce inequality and improve social cohesion, especially for youth, women, and vulnerable groups.
2. Supporting the alignment of these efforts with the Global Gateway Investment Agenda to ensure long-term, inclusive progress.

Project activities

Key activities within the project include:

• Mapping existing social innovation initiatives and opportunities in 10 countries.
• Establishing Social Labs for co-creation, pilot testing, and knowledge exchange.
• Incubating and accelerating startups focused on social and environmental impact.
• Delivering training in sustainability, digital skills, gender equity, and impact investment.
• Organising contests and hackathons to foster innovation.
• Providing competitive funding to third parties, focusing on territorial and sectoral diversity.
• Launching a digital platform for e-learning, impact tracking, and community building.
• Hosting public-private dialogue spaces to align local strategies with national and regional priorities.

Expected results

1. Enhanced institutional capacities (public sector, CSOs, BSOs, academia) and the development of tools (such as roadmaps and country strategies) to establish social innovation hubs in the LAC region, drawing from successful EU models.
2. Strengthened entrepreneurial capacities (with a focus on youth, women, and vulnerable groups) and the development of companies offering services to vulnerable populations in the LAC region, enabling sustainable, digital, and socially innovative initiatives.
3. Increased financing/investment opportunities and enhanced support mechanisms to help social innovation projects access funding, promoting equity and sustainable development in line with the EU-LAC Global Gateway Investment Agenda.
4. Improved collaboration and networking opportunities among EU-LAC public-private initiatives and global social innovation programmes, creating a robust framework for the Global Gateway.

Implementing partners

• CAINCO - Chamber of Industry, Commerce, Services, and Tourism of Santa Cruz (Bolivia) acting as Consortium leader
• Tecnalia (Spain)
• ITESM – Monterrey Institute of Technology (Mexico)
• Caribbean Export (Caribbean)
• CACB – Brazilian Confederation of Trade and Business Associations (Brazil)
• International Trade Centre – ITC (International)