News
CEB launches Award for Social Cohesion
28 January 2020
PARIS – The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) launches today an annual competition to acknowledge outstanding contributions to social cohesion across Europe. The CEB Award for Social Cohesion will bestow a €25,000 prize on a project that addresses pressing social issues in one of the CEB’s 41 member countries.
Eligible for nomination are individuals over 18 years old and small organisations from CEB members. Nominations should be either for projects at an early stage of implementation or for advanced project ideas. The overarching theme of ‘social cohesion’ will be assessed on impact, sustainability and innovation/replicability.
An independent Jury, comprising five members, will select one single award winner on the basis of a shortlist drawn up by CEB experts. Reflecting the diversity of CEB membership, the Jury is diverse and well balanced and its members come from the fields of social development, social entrepreneurship, academia or civil society.
The first ceremony of the CEB Award for Social Cohesion is scheduled to take place on the occasion of this year’s CEB Joint Meeting, to take place in Dublin on 2nd July 2020.
“The CEB itself has been working for over 60 years to strengthen social integration and eliminate social and economic inequalities in Europe. Knowing that there are numerous initiatives in CEB member countries serving the same purpose and making their own contribution to the promotion of social cohesion, we sought a way to give those initiatives credit and set them as positive examples to be emulated,” said Rolf Wenzel, the Governor of the CEB. “I am delighted that today we are launching the CEB Award for Social Cohesion,” he concluded.
CEB Award for Social Cohesion 2020
Set up in 1956, the CEB (Council of Europe Development Bank) has 41 member states. Twenty-two Central, Eastern and South Eastern European countries, forming the Bank's target countries, are listed among the member states. As a major instrument of the policy of solidarity in Europe, the Bank finances social projects by making available resources raised in conditions reflecting the quality of its rating (AA+ with Fitch Ratings, outlook positive, AAA with Standard & Poor's, outlook stable and Aa1 with Moody's, outlook stable). It thus grants loans to its member states, and to financial institutions and local authorities in its member states for the financing of projects in the social sector, in accordance with its Articles of Agreement.