Europe 2020, the EU's ten-year growth strategy launched in 2010, aims to create new and better jobs and realize an inclusive society. The current economic crisis makes this challenge even more ambitious and the European Social Fund, the main tool used by the EU to support employment, is playing a major role in mitigating its effects.

Nevertheless the ESF is not an employment agency which publish job offers, but it finances tens of thousands of projects, local, regional and national, throughout Europe, focusing on people.

Better education and new skills are decisive to providing companies with staff able to design and produce better and innovative products and services, exportable worldwide. Liguria,  one of the smallest Italian regions whose economic and social context is strongly disadvantageous, is a case of excellence because it has reoriented the action strategy of the ESF.

To stem as much as possible the crisis effects, Liguria has adapted it to critical elements of its territory, in order to contrast jobs loss, preserve the companies’ human capital and create skills that, more than others, could provide practical job perspectives. With 390 million Euros at its disposal, in the 2007-2013 period, 99% were allocated by Liguria to launch 12,000 projects for more than 200,000 participants.

The results that have been achieved and the objectives of the next planning have been gathered in the book "200,000 opportunities. From objectives to results", presented on March 6 in Genoa by the Italian-born British-based journalist Barbara Serra, through a sort of storytelling able to engage Regional Directions and beneficiaries in a technical and emotional narration.