First Annual Convention of the European Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion

The Convention will review the progress made towards the headline target of reducing poverty and social exclusion by at least 20 million by 2020, the implementation of the European Platform against Poverty and will also debate suggestions for future actions.

Date: October 17-18, 2011
Location: Auditorium Maximum of the Jagiellonian University, Cracow

This first Annual Convention, organised by the European Commission with the Polish Presidency, will be the first stage of a transition to the Convention's final format. Its key objective is to give visibility and political weight to the European Platform against Poverty and build support across various policies and institutions, different levels of government and civil society actors.

The Convention will build on the lessons learnt from the European Year on Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion 2010 and will bridge between the objectives of the Year and the social objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy.

Three sessions will address the objectives of the Annual Convention:

• Several Ministers will present their views and ambitions on setting their national poverty target and their priorities

• Commission services will debate with the audience about their work on poverty and inclusion and how they have implemented the Platform against Poverty in 2011

• Participants will be able to make suggestions for future actions in five parallel sessions, followed by a report back to the closing Plenary Session

More than half of the expected 350 participants will represent non institutional actors including NGOs, social partners, academics, journalists etc. The second biggest group of people will be national and regional authorities represented by their Ministers.

Participation is by invitation only.