The Future FEAD Exploring innovative tools to support Europe’s most deprived Under the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), food and material support funded by the European Fund for the most deprived (FEAD) will not only be provided through the distribution of goods, but also through electronic vouchers or cards. To discuss how this legislative change could lead to improvement in implementation, we organised a roundtable on 19 February at the European Parliament. The event was hosted by MEPs David Casa and Brando Benifei and attended by more than 40 representatives of European institutions, local authorities, food and goods distributors and providers of voucher solutions like Edenred. ESN members f rom Croatia, Malta and Greece discussed their experience with FEAD’s current 46
implementation and presented their voucher programmes currently in use. Participants agreed that e-vouchers and e-cards could indeed improve FEAD implementation for public authorities and beneficiaries. E-vouchers can… •
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elp beneficiaries to h make their own choices to purchase fresh food and prevent them from queuing at distribution points; reduce public expenditure for food storage and distribution and free up resources for other social support measures; be combined with accompanying social inclusion measures such as health and employment programmes.
