The Virtual WSFTE 2020 is over and it was a success, notwithstanding the adverse conditions and short timing there was to change the format from a face-to-face meeting in Barcelona to an week-long series of online activities, proposed and self-managed by participant organisations for the most part (from 100 countries worldwide), as well as with a series of convergences and inter-movements dialogues to start working on a common agenda of the Transformative Economies based on 4 dimensions of transformation and the basis of a long term pact. The road is still uphill and the exchanges have to improve - with better language facilitation and interpretation, more preparation and systematisation of results, better online tools and meeting methodologies - but there is definitely a positive sign of progress and will to participate.
RIPESS Europe and RIPESS Intercontinental have been very engaged in the Forum process, at all levels. Thanks to an ad hoc team set up in the last two months, it was possible to contribute substantially to make the meeting more international and open, to communicate in several languages and to promote more convergence spaces, as well as the linkage to other events and processes, such as the Dialogues en Humanité, the Viral Open Space, Fearless Cities, Global Dialogue on Systemic Alternatives, Edge Funders alliance...
As for the themes addressed and developed during the forum by RIPESS members, here are some of them: In addition to the territorial confluences, Occitania, France, Central and Eastern European countries (Busse project) and Europe as a whole, we could see food sovereignty, collaboration between territories (urban and rural for example), approaches and tools for SSE education, eco-feminism, cultural and human rights, social impact measures, fair trade, migrations and economic citizenship, youth and culture, solidarity economy at the time of COVID and finally SSE and degrowth; the presentation of the book "From Social Business to the Solidarity Economy" by Jean-Louis Laville. But also the more technological themes; Open Source tools and the Transformative Economies Lab, a tool for mapping organizations. |