Towards social and solidarity economy: what kind of economic practices for mediterranean of prosperity, sustainability and social justice?
Food for thought: Connection between the Mediterranean culture of production and exchange and social and solidarity economy (SSE) / Potentials of SSE in inter-Mediterranean economic cooperation and in promoting alternative development chains, different from those dominating North-South or West-East relations / Examples of good practices on the two shores of the Mediterranean
Objective of this dialogue: Promoting SSE as a tool for economic and social awakening in the region, capable of putting together the North and the South without triggering mechanisms leading to subordination, unsustainability or neo-colonialism; reflecting on how much SSE could contribute to Euro-Mediterranean integration.
Summary by Gabriele Vaccaro, Banca Etica (moderator)
Participants: Sarra el-Idrissi, Morocco, political activist from Fez. She works as national coordinator for the project IESS! (Employment initiatives of social and solidarity economy) in Tunisia; Maria Peteinaki, Greece, member of the Greek party Ecologist Greens, architect working on common goods, participative city planning and “degrowth”. She is cofounder of Alternative Tours of Athens and she has promoted the movement of self-managed urban vegetable gardens; Benedito (Benè) Anselmo Martins de Oliveira, Brazil, man who has a long experience in social economy, non-profit sector, social cooperatives, collective management, participation, cooperation and solidarity. He’s currently Chief of Cabinet for SENAES (National secretariat of solidarity economy referring to the Brazilian Ministry of Labour).
Benè Martins de Oliveira explained that solidarity economy is a widespread and popular practice in Brazil, that started to develop after dictatorship was overthrown. Solidarity economy had in the past and still has a “political” significance, as it implies making choices which are both in favour of and starting from the poor, who thus becomes the main characters of this process. De Oliveira pointed out that university researchers carry out a very important task, as they create a solid scientific base to support the elaboration of perspectives and solutions for transforming the reality. That also resultes into a great impulse for cooperatives with a Christian-social background born in the context of grassroots communities. De Oliveira underlines that figures and results achieved by social cooperation are remarkable, if we consider the size of the Brazilian population. Finally, he recalls that last governments have shown political attention and socio-economic awareness, facilitating both the institutionalisation of this process and the development of network connections between public entities and civil societies in the framework of solidarity economy (according to a practice/theory/practice methodology).
Maria Peteinaki underlined experiences and good practices experimented in the path towards solidarity economy, starting from the Greek economic and social crisis. Citizens’ initiatives have shown self-management capacities, who were born from specific demands; this has counterbalanced the spreading of corruption, which has been further contained by the changing socio-cultural perspectives. Maria finally described: her experience with Alternative Tours of Athensaims at promoting alternative touristic experiences in the city by showing its modern life, young artists and social movements emerged during last years; her engagement for common goods, urban cultural events, urban regeneration and participative city planning and her involvement in the movement of self-managed urban vegetable gardens.
Sarra el-Idrissi underlined that the emergence of a strong social movement for solidarity economy has not necessarily meant that institutions provide adequate response. In her experience, social economy is strictly connected to the reality of rural cooperatives: they would however need a reference legislative framework whose absence prevents non-profit sector from developing itself.
Antonello Tavilla is the spokeperson for the Solidarity Economy District of Messina (Italy). He intervened at the end to point out that Italian and European institutions are not complying with their own policies which pay specific attention to the Mediterranean and give solutions to the phenomenon of immigration. He asked the Greek and Tunisian interlocutors were if they perceive Europe as absent both politically and institutionally in dealing with historical processes such as immigration (an absence which makes Europe itself more vulnerable). Peteinaki and El-Idrissi recognised that a long path is still to be traced by grassroots movements, in order to let these strategic choices become a common reference for European institutions, which are still considered very distant.
The dialogue ended up by concluding that social economy can become a cultural paradigm; important steps have been taken in this direction, but a lot is still to be done on the two shores in terms of economic/social networks. Agriculture, tourism and culture are domains useful to elaborate a political project showing that neoliberalism has failed and promoting a situation where economy is at the service of people, not the contrary. Therefore, we should keep on pursuing the idea of a Euro-Mediterranean citizenship and keep on giving value to existing forums, web and radio channels and to research centres, as it happened in Brazil.
