ESF – European Social Fund

The European Social Fund (ESF) is one of the EU’s Structural Funds, set up to reduce differences in prosperity and living standards across EU Member States and regions, and therefore promoting economic and social cohesion. ESF contibutes to a continuous improvement of employees abilities and in the same time of their proffessional perspectives.

Established in 1957, ESF is the main source of The European Union for financial support for human resources development programs and workforce occupation. ESF helps the member states in fighting un-employment, early workplace leaving and it promotes training and lifelong learning so that Europe`s workforce and its companies are better prepared. For the programming period 2007- 2013, the purpose of the ESF interventions is that of supporting the meber states in anticipating and administrating efficiently economical and social changes.

ESF finances the following priorities:
• Increasing workers and enterprise adaptability
• Increasing access and participation on the labor market
• Promoting social inclusion by fighting against discrimination and facilitating the access to the labor market for disadvantaged people
• Human capital investments, especially by improving education and training systems
• Actions aimed at building institutional capacity and raising the efficiency of public administration, nationally, regionally and locally

ESF provides huge opportunities for organizations and companies in Romania which invest in human resources, through the 2 programs that is finances:
• Sectoral Operational Program Human Resources Development (POSDRU), managed by the Ministry of Labor, Family and Social Protection.
• Operational Program for Development of Administrative Capacity Programul (PODCA), managed within the Ministry of Admnistration and Internal Affairs

Through POSDRU over 4.2 billion Euros will be allocated to finance projects in public, privateor nongovernmental sectors. In this way, through POSDRU and ESF organizations like the following can benefit:
• Public institutions
• Training centers
• Social partners (trade unions, employers union)
• Professional associations, foundations, NGO-s
• Private companies