Article by Ruby van der Wekken, Ripess Co- coordinator and
Jason Nardi, General Delegate Ripess Europe

RIPESS Europe’s 13th General Assembly meeting took place in Geneva between 13-15th June, amidst the 20 years celebrations of local host member Après Geneva and 15 years anniversary of Après Vaud. During the assembly days, representatives from member networks and organisations, as well as different additional ‘visiting’ (local) actors crossed paths. We were as such glad to have guests with us from our sister network ECOLISE and from MOBA, the easter european cooperative housing network, with one of the objectives being to share more on our organisational model and processes, in order to work better together.

A first hand encounter with several of Geneva’s local SSE initiatives set the basis for the discussions over three days, which took place during a stimulating flow of visits, presentations, collective reflecting moments, public panels, world café tables and the general assembly itself. During these diverse moments, and starting from the significance of the 2023 UN’s resolution on SSE, the topics of the rethinking and rebuilding of economics and SSE enabling social policy were explored.

As a network of networks, we also took concrete further steps with regards to the re-envisioning of RIPESS Europe’s governance structure (towards a more sociocratic practice) and with regards to the development of our Knowledge Commons, sharing tools, competences and methodologies, and developing further our IT platforms, such as the SSE online library, Socioeco.org.

Geneva’s local SSE ecosystems

Après Geneva since its creation in 2004 comprises more than 800 members, among which 400 enterprises and organisations. RIPESS Europe’s members got to know a number of local SSE initiatives such as  L’Espace – a place that hosts many events from the Apres-GA network, the MACO circular economy Reuse Centre, where one can borrow tools, swap clothes, find all sorts of resusable materials and learn to use also 3D printers in the Centre’s Fablab;  the LeNid cooperative store and food coop, where a large variety of products can be bought from local farmers and producers and the cooperative housing building neighborhood of Codha.

Apres-GA has been working on the envisioning of an SSE ecosystem including the above mentioned initiatives, to which members can take subscriptions, under the heading of “One planet” neighborhoods. The process of ecosystem development has entailed “ground floor programming” of the neighborhoods, which has sometimes led to collective decisions taken regarding the set up of the neighborhood getting derailed onto another track, after the meetings. Therefore a real estate agency was established, to rent out collectively in order to create a common future vision to prevent falling into old patterns.

Codha’s Cooperative housing experiences are going against the grain of real estate speculation and have proved to be providing cheaper housing, using less space and to learn important lessons about how when one shares a lot, one can be owning less but ends up having access to more. Core to the cooperative housing is its participatory process, with common spaces in between the flats empowering  community building. From agricultural land to industrialisation to today’s housing purpose of the land, Codha’s process can be seen as a retake of the question of how to govern housing as a common good.

Also a local currency is part of the envisioned neighbourhood ecosystem, which is besides a means of payment also a way of linking people together. The locally operating Monnaie Leman is a cryptocurrency, founded on a blockchain having its own rules, including that no interest mining takes place and no speculation.

All in all, the inspiring initiatives and SSE ecosystems in Geneva proved to be good shared food for thought accompanying the discussion throughout the assembly days regarding how to rethink and rebuild economics from the ground up.

The UN SSE resolution and the rethinking of economics

A part of the questioning during the days in Geneva focused on the significance of the UN resolution on SSE “Promoting the Social and Solidarity Economy for Sustainable Development” (April 2023). And to then furthermore address how do we come to create understanding and credibility to spread the resolution and the support sought for SSE also to public authorities.

Such was the subject of the first public panel on June 13th ‘Rethinking economics for Social and Solidarity economy’, which saw the participation of Dr. Ilcheong Yi (UNRISD), Aylin Cigdem Kone (Professor of Economics,  Mugla Sitki Kocman University in Turkey, Sosyal Ekonomi blog), Christian Arnsperger (Professor at University of Lausanne), Dr. Elodie Ros (University of Paris 8, UCOOP student cooperative network) and Dr. Jean-Luc Falcone (University of Geneva) and moderated by Antonin Calderon (Après GE)

As Dr. Yi stressed, RIPESS has been an important actor in the coming into being and adoption of the resolution. Yi spoke of the resolution as being very broad, but with an important political logic behind it: that of SSE versus neoliberalism and of cooperation versus competition The resolution can as such be seen as an entry point to the wider community to which we want to spread the ideas of SSE.

For Aylin Cigdem Kone the UN resolution is a real answer to mainstream economics, putting people and their needs, and not profit, at the center. Economics as a discipline shapes our behaviour. It can as such make us more selfish, less cooperative, with a narrow conceptualisation of wellbeing and an obsession with GDP. We therefore need to develop alternative measures. However, as Kone put it, the rethinking of the economy is not enough. We need to rebuild economics! An economy for the people. For this, natural scientists, social scientists, economists are to be brought around the same table to elaborate a new narrative focusing on the impact of economy on society, on our planet.

Also Christian Arnsperger spoke about the rebuilding of economics, and about the framework conditions for the rethinking. He saw a lot of progress with this happening at the University of Liege. What are the obstacles for students to take up this subject?

Paris 8 University has a masters program on SSE since the 1990’s, which as Elodie Ros told is a lot focused on practice. Students have also formed a cooperative, which is engaging in the identifying of concepts and practice that lead to another economy. In France, six universities have student cooperatives, and the goal is to experiment through their engagement in the co-op to be thinking about value, the common good, and governance and to see what kind of actions they can take in light of their knowledge and skills to see to the needs in the territory. Their experiences are to bring to the forefront how the economy can create also social value, whilst making the knowledge of grassroot actors visible.

Dr. Yi reminded us that throughout history there never has been an economic system composed of only one type of economy. The whole has always been composed of different economic relations.  We are living in plural economies – which also gives us the hope that we can change the economy as a whole. The UN resolution is the declaration starting the tour de france of different economies and in order to complete this race we need to have strategies to operate, together with other forms of economy.

Yi thought there was a need for two layers of strategy. First of all, there is the need for a strong core keeping key solidarity elements upfront like democratic control, redistribution, and the attention for vulnerable people. Secondly, there is the need to know how to engage with different players, like social entrepreneurship, social business with social purposes. Some of those players can become part of SSE under certain circumstances. If the world is to be changed through the furthering of SSE, a political strategy is needed within which our definitions are nested.

As to our plural economies, Kone spoke on how feminist/ecological/doughnut economics are all contributing to alternative economies. The important thing is for researchers to go to the grassroots, to learn from them and on the obstacles they face to consolidate their community. In Turkey, SSE is giving hope that we can in fact change our economy.

Tools, currency & social policy

As Jean-Luc Falcone brought up, also computational methods and the use of digital tools are necessary to do things differently. Tools can bring many problems along with them. Falcone told of how in the procurement of large machinery and services by government, in the end the lowest price will be the determining factor and equipment will be bought for instance from a company like Oracle. This will not necessarily at all have to do with best quality. The unabling for more democratic tools to become more mainstream is besides price also the sticking to old network protocols. That is why it is important to stick with free protocols, to allow for increased interconnecting, and to even simply start with the replacing of certain parts.

As was correctly reminded of from the floor by Eric Lavillunière (Transition Minett, Luxemburg), the lowest price is not the real price, because a good part of the real cost is externalised. As Lavilluniere furthermore put it, we live in a world where it is said you do not necessarily deserve to get needs met, if you cannot buy them.

Arnsperger then asked, how can we start to use a local currency linked to social policy, in order to address the structural conditions related to the implementation of the resolution and to break the spell of the capitalist logic that captures public servants. At the Geneva canton level, the main objection to the proposed local currency model, wanting to make food accessible to poor people, was that it created unfair competition with the supermarkets.

Money creation can help in two ways to boost the SSE resolution. First, as per modern money theory, this can be done by money created through government spending. The government could put much more money into circulation by creating it. Public procurement could be used much more massively to boost SSE. This would in fact make competition much more fair! In other words, the democratic planning of central money creation.

Secondly, local complementary currencies could be called into being and strongly linked to priorities of SSE. Money could be channeled to certain sectors, services – or as was commented at various occasions for instance linked to the right to food (sovereignty) – and converted into swiss francs if wanted. For the latter there would need to be a fund, which has been asked for in Geneva (the answer to this is still awaited).

Arnsperger also spoke on the importance of money creation, as being a crucial tool through which to relax any harmful competition drive existing also among SSE organisations because of funding issues.

The right to good food and the power of the city

The GA’s second public roundtable ‘For the SSE: public policies from the local to the global level. Laws and funding for the SSE!’ continued the discussions addressing the UN SSE resolution whilst taking up in particular the themes of food and the issue of the potential of the city to be enabling the development of SSE. Food, our food system, is a pervasive element in our daily lives and society. And we are increasingly becoming aware that changing the food systems therefore has great potential for us to develop pathways towards healthier and better communities and through this society. It is as such no wonder that developments around this topic were prominently present in our discussions in Geneva.

The level of the city then is identified as important to focus energy on with regards to pushing for the actual implementation of SSE policy, instead of the level of the federation/nation where different culminating forces will not necessarily support the development of SSE.

The participants of this second round table were Alfonso Gomez, Deputy Mayor of Geneva – Administrative Councillor DFEL, in charge of economic development),); Simel Esim, ILO (Head of the Cooperative, Social and Solidarity Economy Unit, Co-Chair of the UN Inter-Agency Working Group on the Social and Solidarity Economy); Cristophe Golay, Geneva Academy, IHEID; Judith Hitchman (RIPESS Intercontinental) and was moderated by Drazen Simlesa, co-coordinator of RIPESS Europe.

Simel Esim said that the ILO has recently adopted a resolution on Decent work and care in the economy, in which six mentions are found of SSE on cooperatives and one on community led initiatives. This is a way of mainstreaming SSE. The resolution matters as it gives visibility to the issue and asks for commitment, promotes guidance and integrates SSE into financing schemes to ensure the needed resources.

At the same time Esim also spoke on how there can be SSE policies in a country, but that a second issue is in how far they are really implemented. And if a law is elaborated, are there then also resources allocated for the implementation. In Argentina, factories were occupied and recuperated by their workers, but the law came 10 years later. Hard lessons were also learned for instance in Korea, when at some point there was strong political support from one political party for SSE, but with a change of government, also that changed overnight. SSE should not only be an issue in times of crisis.

Judith Hitchman spoke on how Urgenci, the international network for the furthering of Community Supported Agriculture, has consciously founded its workings on two pillars of food sovereignty and solidarity economy. Now, since the UN resolution, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation is in support of SSE.

The work around food sovereignty is no longer a subject exclusively a focus of discussion concerning the Global South, but need has pushed this to be a subject also in Europe. Geneva is the first city in Europe where the right to quality food for everybody was voted by its citizens into the canton’s constitution, with Geneva importantly taking with this a human rights approach to food. A law of implementation regarding this will come out in autumn.

Christophe Golay spoke of these developments and pointed also to the European citizens initiative – the right to food manifesto, which importantly changes the focus from food aid to the right to good food and to Food not being a commodity. The hope is to come to an agroecology council at EU level as also to with the manifesto try to negotiate the upcoming law at Geneva canton level.

Gomez, deputy mayor of the City of Geneva, voiced the concern that as the legislative system is predominantly federal, it gives as such room to move, but is all in all enabling only a limited development of SSE. Geneva has programmes for SSE and the constitution of Geneva states the need to protect the right to food, which will imply a regulation of companies. However, the canton responded that one cannot control the companies. 80% of food is distributed through supermarket chains such as Coop and Migros, which are such companies with a huge power. Priorities, subsidies could be given to SSE, and there could be public procurement with specific rules. But there is the need to show the advantage of SSE and the circular economy for wellbeing, the need to show impact on a departmental and national level.

Hitchman put forward that nevertheless the collective force exercised through participatory democracy at grassroot level is core, as it is at the local level where implementation and allocation really takes place regarding land, water, energy. The UN can issue declarations and resolutions, whilst local governments can support or kill it by not enabling corresponding policies. The European Union allows conditionality to be built into procurement rules.

In France, for instance, the right to food is relatively mainstreamed and the ecological transition supported. Experiences have been developed in the form of a social security contract which in practice entails the receiving of a sum of money (via a pre-paid card system) for food which is earmarked as to where the money can be spent:  directly from farmers or in coop shops. As such there is the need to cooperate on all levels, as happens in the Nyeleni global food sovereignty process.

Towards the end of the second panel it was reiterated by Selim that in order to get real solidarity – not leaving anyone behind – back into public policy, we need to be careful about the SSE boundaries versus business as usual entrepreneurship, whilst it is clear that the international definition of SSE will get its own form and shape on a local level.

Our Knowledge Commons

RIPESS Europe’s GA organised World Café tables around two thematic themes: the development of the networks knowledge sharing tools and the network’s governance.

The outcome of the World Café table on our Knowledge Commons stood in direct support of the needs surfacing from the discussions during the GA, which also included a timeslot devoted to intercooperation plans between the European members. The latter brought out the themes of future cooperation to be taking place among others around housing and spaces for commoning; IT tools and the workings towards an SSE AI; SSE education, youth involvement and research as well as the sharing of concrete practices concerning community engagement, climate action and sustainable development.

RIPESS is wanting to continue the development of its knowledge sharing tools as Socioeco.org, together with members and partners, in order to represent and visualise needs, practices, principles and narratives from the ground. This includes also the will to yet further search for empowering complementarity among different alternative approaches to economics, and for instance establish a common website of different approaches. Importantly this entails also exchange on the development of tools concerning impact, or rather social utility. A main objective then is to yet better confront decision makers, public servants in order to come to enabling social policy and environments.

Academic cooperation came to be a considerable point of discussion during the World Cafe, and this in two respects : the issue of academic partnership to strengthen advocacy for the SSE/commons paradigm shift towards public authorities and secondly, the cooperation with universities to allow for Solidarity economy teaching at academic level.

Reflecting on the world cafe discussions, it was summarised and laid out by Adriana Bezerra Cordosa of Transition Minett (Luxembourg) that universities themselves are in dispute as to how they produce knowledge. They are not homogeneous places. Research should be WITH its subject not ON something. It should also be acknowledged that university is not the only place that does research, there are also other actors that do so, without scientific labeling. Movements themselves create knowledge and can identify faults in ongoing research, as Monika Onyszkiewicz (Fair Trade Poland) pointed out;  but they are so deeply immersed in action, it is hard for them to bring this coherently to the forefront. It is therefore very important to come to an empowering – and not extractivist – co-creation of knowledge by researchers and movements/practitioners and to use this politically.

It was also brought up that some researchers will want to do movement/politically engaged research, but will not be able to get funded for this. As such how can the right to knowledge production get validated, if we cannot necessarily leave this to the academics because of tied financing. This once again resonated with the need identified during other discussions in Geneva to discuss the topic of money creation for SSE, in order also to combat the need to compete.