Current agenda of Commons and Social and Solidarity Economy initiatives 2018/11/14/apunts/01

https://pad.femprocomuns.cat/p/sharebcn2018agenda

1) Welcome 2'

2) Short presentations of each initiative (focusing on resources and good practices of our field of debate):

- Nicole Alix (La Coop des Communs): 5'

- Guillaume Compain (Co-Communs): 5'

- Martin Van den Borre (CITIES): 5'

- Mohammed el Youssof (XES): 5'

- Iris Aviñoa & Fernando Panigua (World Social Forum Barcelona 2019-2020): 5'

- Patrice Bessac (Mayor of Montreuil): 5'

3) Which are the main risks and oportunitties in the promotion of commons and ESS projects?: 8'

4) What should be the role of the public policies in the promotion of commons and ESS projects?: 8'

5) How could we cordinate better? (Actions to think as a result of the session): 12'

The objective of these sessions is to strengthen our connections and to look for ways to connect

Nicole Alix

I am very happy to be here, as we are focused on action I will only explain who we are,

we have a small organization whose name is La Coop des Communs.

The idea is connecting the commons and the Social and Solidarity Economy.

We are activist, researchers and entrepreneurs of the SSE and the commons.

We aim to create an ecosystem that favors the SSE and the commons.

Guillaume Compain 

we are a network of actors and researchers on solidarity economy and the commons,

we are a network of french platforms and also activists that want to promote fair practices and commons practices in the sharing economy in France.

- Context: the growing criticism on the so-called sharing economy. Many platforms extract value, data,... it is sometimes more about "taking what is mine" rather than sharing.

- Platform cooperativims: is this the solution?

There are more than 90 platform coops in the world.

We are aiming to promote this model in the Fench territory.

Open food france, in the aim to connect actors, researchers, to create resources together to make this platforms grow

We have created groups

We are developing an inter-platform charter.

we have a group on innovating accounting, how can you identify the value, a group focus on data interoperabilty, legal status for open governance, open and reciprocity licenses

On the international level, the idea is to be widespread and to promote this vision, through alliances with other entities like P2P Foundation, Dimmons,...

We want to have a permanent dialogue with the institutions to promote this model.

Mohammed el Youssof

I work for Calidoscoop.

At the second layer, we are members of Xarxa d’Economia Solidària (XES), the Catalan Network of Solidarity Economy. We are over 300 members.

at the third layer, we belong to the Commons Commission (Comissió Procomuns de la XES), as insiders from the SSE and outsiders.

It has been created in 2018 to debate, share, discuss and try to bridge the cooperative platform economy and the SSE.

Martin Van den Borre 

International centre for innovation and knowledge transfer on the social and solidarity economy

(CITIES) with Barcelona, Montreal, Bilbao, to foster transfer of knowledge transfer experiences from one territory to the other.

The notion of the commons is new in Montreal. We have a long tradition of cooperativism in Montreal, but even the notion of SSE is relatively new. The traditional term was the cooperative economy. But the notion of the commons.. the first nations in Canada are commons, but.. is a new vocabulary for us, that is coming mostly from French immigration.

We are having a lot of debates in Canada, about if we are doing the same thing, in 2 weeks a delegation of Canada is doing a mission in Barcelona to come and see what is happening here, the public policies, the programmes, the projects that are being done here in Barcelona. In Montreal we have some projects with initiatives from citizens themselves.

Iris Aviñoa 

World social forum of transformative economies

It is a "process", that will take place in Barcelona in 2019 and 2020. Our goal is to create a dialogue, with the movements that are already working in transformative economies, we have designed a thematic forum that will be working independently and that will create the spaces for the different axes to debate and talk:

SSE

feminist economies

ecoagriculture and food sovereigy

commons and social and solidarity economy

thinking of transversal axes public policies, training and research,

In 2019 we will have a previous meeting with around 500 people.

In 2020 we hope to gather 10,000 people.

The road so far:

This WSF was validated in the last WSF in Bahia.

It is promoted by: Xarxa d’Economia Solidària (XES), REAS, RIPESS.

The funding operational team has been recently created in Barcelona.

Axes are starting to work together, set their goals and map the international actors.

The first inter-axes assembly will take place next week.

Web: www.transformadora.org

Ricard Espelt: What are the challenges that face these projects? How to promote commons and SSE? What are the risks? Foir example, what can we do to get visibility and attention in th media?

Nicole Alix: We are here to do things together: why don't we focus on what we can do together, in the ooportunities?

Ricard Espelt: I have been working on studying cooperatives of the agroecologic sector and we don't get the attention of the media, and this a risk...

Nicole Alix: the risk is not to work together, not to find the means to create connections among us, not to find the funding...

Mohammed el Youssof

We might keep an eye on the framing, sometimes we are focusing on things that don't take us anywhere, and each of us are working to push our projects ahead.

This event, the Sharing Cities, or the World Social Forum, are requiring a strong energy to pull different projects together.

Fernando Paniagua:

The external risk is here, around us,  the biggest risk that we have is not to be organized against this external system that is destrying us, capitalism.

Martin: the biggest risk for us is to be divided.

Our responsability now is really big,

The moment is critical: we face the destruction of the planet, we risk being coopted by the sharing economy

The question of the media is minor, our ability to be transformative is what is important, then the visibility will come. We need to transform everything, and based on our impact, the visibility will come.

The snowball effect, happens when we are doing the right thing. So for me the questions are: are we doing the right things? are we working together, not being divided? ...

Q: Núria Reguero: how can we assure public policies that allow for the autonomy of the movements and avoid the repeated history of cooptation of social movement?

Media is very important: now we live in a real media enclosure, we are taken over with a media empire that takes us to massive consumption,

Mohammed el Youssof:

Media is a challenge, but we can face it, it is there, we should do our duties well, insist on what we do, connect with similars, partners, and create partnership, fight agains media will distract us.

We should keep our energy focused in what is important in the short term.

Nicole Alix:

Public policies in the cities are great oportunities, unions, commerce, cooperatives, not having silos, it would be good for you to explain what you have done,

Research articles on public policies in Barcelona: it would be very interesting for you to come from Barcelona to France and explain this public concept.

we talk about public policies as if they were things that come from somewhere up there and come down to these poor people.

Martin Van den Borre

Public policies are very important. The local level is key because it's the one we can influence the most and organize.

The local level is very important and we need to build from that level. Brasil is a good example of how a country where there has been work for 15 years, it could

We need to be united: cities as an organization. Progressive cities like Barcelona, Seoul, Puebla,... Progressive cities and territories, because it is not only the government, it is also civil society...

Fernando

I am surprised that you are talking about the Barcelona model. I hope that there is a Barcelona model. It would be great to know that there is a Barcelona model

In Barcelona you have many people working for transformation, and people creating parties to get the power of the City Hall...

But the institution is a model very difficult to transform. You need a lot of power to transform that.

As now in Barcelona we have now the oportunity to build together public policies, between the social movements and the public institution, that helps you thing you are doing the right things...

Mohammed

If we take this speed train we might feel like we are  ... for not reason,  we get spontaneous support and the next year we don't, we have to think of the proper estate of our projects so they are solid.

Martin:

In what we the local governments are trying to do, the media plays a great role in how it is conceived.

The media and the message need to be controled

Ricard: I ask you: how to take action? small or big, but how to take action?

Nicole Alix:

we have some power,

First, we have the power to understand how it is difficult to do what we want to do?

Guido Smorto has been doing research on platforms, you can ask them to be fair without fair regulations,

The first action we try to do is to show how the global regulation presents us and to work on legal devices and frameworks to be able to survive.

The time to be able to work the way we want

analysing our needs on devices and management to be able to survive and transform the world, accounting standards, reciprocity licences,

Guillaume Compain:

from the ground analyising specific projects, find patterns,

Research action: identify the actors on the ground and grow their own networks to enable them to take action.

Connection between practitioners

Martin Van den Borre

An important action is to defend our institutions. We have talked about cooptation of entities and coops, or coops that disappear. We have to build, but we also need to defend those organizations that we already have.

create large organisations to create food, housing,

Mohammed:

to internationalize the ecosystem and the phenomenon of collective economy.

Fernando

The World Social Forum will be an opportunity to do everything we've been saying in the pannel.

The Forum is thought as a process to get out of our comfort spaces, where we know a lot about commons and SSE, and get in touch with others who are close to us. The Forum is a call to action.

Q. Baybars: I want to ask about the global dimension beyond walls and frontiers.