International
Newsletter on Sustainable Local Development
Newsletter
#100 – Final issue
July 1st 2013
Summary
Editorial
message
Past, present and
future…by Yvon Poirier
Ten
years of voluntary commitment to rehabilitate the value of “local” as opposed
to “global” by
Martine Theveniaut
Food Sovereignty, Solidarity Economy and Local Development by Judith
Hitchman
Editorial message
This 100th edition of our newsletter marks
the end of our publication.
We have now been publishing this newsletter for ten
years. The first number was published in November 2003, and since then, we have
managed to send out 10 numbers a year. Apart from the beginning, all the
newsletters were in four languages: French, English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Since 2009, our friends in the Seikatsu Club in Japan have published it in
Japanese, and since October 2012 our friends of AKSI UI have published an
Indonesian version. It was essential to us to publish in different languages,
because our objective was to share the achievements of local actors from all
over the world.
We have various different reasons for deciding to stop
publishing the newsletter. Our early readers will remember that this is a
strictly voluntary initiative, and was planned from the outset as a temporary
measure, with the idea that an organisation would take over the work. Even if
none have done so, the information that we have shared in the Newsletter are
passed on and shared in several other international networks that have relayed
the ideas and increased our readership numbers.
Over the years, we have examined key questions from
all angles, and illustrated a path that is shared and practiced by many others,
that of encouraging people to take responsibility for their own development,
rather than waiting for external or institutional solutions. This is why our
respective roads have led us to take on responsibilities to carry our
convictions forward at a more global level.
And we hope that you will also understand that we no
longer feel able to devote the necessary attention to the very demanding work
that producing a quality newsletter requires. This is why we have taken the
deliberate decision to stop publishing.
Finally we would like to thank our faithful
subscribers, and extend our heartfelt volunteers who have supported the
revision and translation process of our newsletter: Évéline, (Yvon’s sister),
who has translated articles into English, Michel Colin who has translated into
Portuguese since 2006, as well as Brunilda Rafael and Paula Garuz who have in
recent years been responsible for the Spanish version. Our thanks also to
Daniel Tygel in Brazil for the newsletter template that we have been using
since 2007.
Finally, we wish to pay homage to our dear friend
Francisco Botelho, who passed away in 2008. It was he who persuaded us in 2003
to start this newsletter to maintain the dynamics of pooling knowledge. It has
been every bit as much his work as ours.
Judith Hitchman
Yvon Poirier
Martine Theveniaut
Past, present and
future
Yvon Poirier
Some history of how this Newsletter was born
The origins of our project are founded in the
organisations in which we were involved. We first met towards the end of the
1990s, as we were all involved in close international networks. In 1998, I was
a member of the organising committee of the Global
Meeting for Community Economic Development that took place in Sherbrooke in
Canada. The 800 participants included a 15-member delegation from the
Délos-Constellation association, led by the Portuguese. They announced their
intention to host the next meeting in Portugal in 2002. Martine was a founding
member of this association.
This project provided us with the opportunity to meet
up in 2001 and 2002 in Europe and in Quebec, and to get to know Francisco
Botelho, one of the organisers of the planned meeting in Portugal. For various
reasons, essentially the change of government in Portugal that marked the
beginning of the return of the right in Europe, as internal difficulties in the
Portuguese organising committee, the planned project was cancelled at the end
of 2002. In April 2002, I was also a member of the provisional committee
established after Sherbrooke to set up an international network of sustainable
local development. For reasons beyond our control, this project also came to
nothing.
In spite of the inability of our respective
organisations to move forward on these projects, essentially due to financial
constraints, we built a solid basis of friendship based on a shared vision of
bottom-up development grounded in empowered communities.
In October 2003, we took advantage of the opportunity
provided by a meeting on social territorial innovation that was being held in
Poitiers, in France, to hold a Délos-Constellation meeting. The evaluation of
the failure to hold the planned meeting in Portugal led to the decision to
dissolve the association. Francisco Botelho heavily insisted on the need for
some continuity. This was what led to Martine, Francisco and I to launching the
International Newsletter for local development, adding the idea that development
needed to be sustainable. We worked very closely as a team, based on our shared
vision to ensure that our ideal of local to global was a living reality.
Martine, Franscisco and I were the members of the
editorial committee from November 2003 until March 2008. Following Francisco’s
death, Judith, with whom we had maintained close ties all those years, joined
the editorial committee.
History has shown that the idea of political
organisation of global meetings by practitioners was a determining factor.
Canadian organisations, especially those based in Quebec, organised a meeting
called “The Local in Action” in Montreal in 1988, followed by the Sherbrooke
meeting in 1998. The latter provided the opportunity to connect with actors of
the new social economy (or solidarity economy) who had held their first meeting
in Peru in 1997. So it was quite natural
for Quebec to host the 2nd Global Meeting of Solidarity Economy in
2001. The relay was passed on: first Dakar in the South in 2005, followed by
Luxemburg in the North in 2009, and soon to Manila in the South later this
year.
It is a great source of satisfaction to observe
that the territorial approach to social and solidarity economy has been carried
forward in our newsletter by a team that has testified to these two citizens’
movements from the first issue to this number 100.
Personal
evaluation
Writing this final article fills me with a sense of a
mission accomplished. Even more, these last ten years as head of the editorial
committee have enriched my life experiences, possibly more than they have to
the majority of readers. It has been a fantastic learning journey. And looking
at what is happening in so many places, I feel optimistic about the future.
People everywhere are demonstrating that it is possible to live differently;
they may still be a minority, but if humankind is to survive, they will need to
become the majority.
Perspectives for
the future
My observations of the last ten years have confirmed
what I already knew, which is the importance of the approach of local to
global. It is to this that I intend to continue devoting myself through
involvement in the organisations, networks and coalitions that organise such
change.
The networking of social and solidarity economy has
progressed considerably since 2003. We have added our work to this movement,
through our respective organisations. Our contribution is in line with our
newsletter, based on the logic of territorial anchoring of SSE (Social
Solidarity Economy). We were in Dakar in 2005, at Lux’09, and we shall be in
Manila next October.
Another more personal reason explains why I wish to
stop publishing the newsletter. Putting a publication like this together is
very demanding (to meet publication deadlines, to ensure that translations get
done on time, layout, mailing, even when I am travelling internationally). Obviously,
it would be possible to share other wonderful stories/experience of local
development, because they exist in their thousands. But I feel we need to go
beyond reporting as we have done, because this perforce remains a little
superficial. I therefore feel the need for more time to analyse this
experience, and to share my reflections and lessons learnt, as well as to
consolidate my ideas on the subject. I have already started writing the
analysis of what I have seen and learnt. But due to a lack of time, I have had
to put it on the back burner for the last year.
Ten
years of voluntary commitment to rehabilitating the value of “local” as opposed
to “global”
Martine Theveniaut
Sociologist
Coordinator of the P’actes Européens
This newsletter aimed to
demonstrate through examples that people are ingenious and have the ability to
organise themselves on a daily basis wherever they live. Each issue of the
newsletter presented initiatives, forms of organisation, tools and
participatory methods and the results they have achieved. This on-line
newsletter, published in four languages has helped to document lasting
“learning stories”, and their general impact in terms of providing
alternatives, through this modest but significant readership. The newsletter
has had a new category of readers in different cultures around the world. There
are innumerable examples, and they are increasingly well connected…. Another
twenty years would not suffice to list them all, and so much the better…! At
this point in time, we feel we have achieved our objective. Sustainable local
development as well as solidarity economy have become more visible and have
contributed through real-life examples to making territory considered as the
geographical basis for organising local solidarity, as well as connecting with
more distant places to carry shared struggles forward and change the system.
Nor
have we hidden the way in which the globalisation of the economy has
dispossessed inhabitants and appropriated their resources: those that lie
underground, their heritage, their land, their lives, etc. with an increasingly
greedy desire to accumulate profits. The dominant media testify in wonder to
the “global” achievements that are technological in nature, but remain silent
on the price paid for this untenable development model, so lacking in
solidarity. How can we break this framework?
Local and Global
can no longer be considered as separate. But it is where people live and in
terms of their genuine contexts that solutions become viable. And this is not
just a local issue. It is the basic question of access to the fundamental human
right to live in health, security and peace. This is something that concerns
each and every one of us.
The end of this
newsletter is not the end: it is a transformation
At this stage in our lives, – well into our sixties –
we need to take stock of the fact that our actions still have too little
influence for the transitions to measure up to the challenges. This analysis is
why I have decided to use my experience to help transmit it to the new
generations that carry the hope for the world. Many young people are committing
to very uncertain paths because they are hopeful. To invent their solutions,
they are looking for references. This is where I feel socially and personally
useful in the coming years.
How can learning from one
another help each of us move forward? Or to jointly carry forward proposals?
Bearing witness again and again on the basis of practice, because in the
current impasse, they are the main potential of available alternative
resources.
Yet, by just changing the
way we perceive practice a little:
-
To highlight how they
succeeded in lasting, renewing, strengthening or changing and transposing to
other contexts… Much information exists on innovative practice, but little on
how to get a handle on the future when institutions block progress.
-
With an additional
question: how can the answers that have already been identified and/or are
emerging make sense, become more numerous so as to push back the dominant
positions and help the globalisation of solidarity through new regulations and
concrete collective proposal become operational?
“Establish SSE as an alternative
development model” is the central theme for
the 5th Meeting for the Promotion of Social Solidarity Economy. http://www.ripess.org/manila2013-en/?lang=en
“Theme 3 will concentrate on the way in which
existing initiatives of SSE organise their economic activities and their
inclusion in networks and value chains. In this theme, territoriality and sustainable
development are the key elements that should be present in all discussion is a
crosscutting manner”.
RIPESS Europe has mandated the European P’acts to
moderate the preparation of theme number 3. An international internet forum is
now open to update the audit and analysis that was carried out in the
preparation of the RIPESS in Europe “Lux’09” on the “democratic participation and territorial grounding of solidarity
economy”.
We shall use the consensus that was reached at LUX’09
to invite people to contribute.
The definition of “territory in the global context” is
the outcome of an international internet forum (July-September 2009) and was
presented by Yvon in Tokyo during the 2nd Asian Solidarity Economy
Forum (ASEF).
This forum in three languages will operate with RIPESS
NA and Yvon Poirier will participate; it will be accessible in Spanish thanks
to the participation of Françoise Wautiez (who moderates the International SSE
site: www.socioeco.org )
Definition of
territory in the global context
International discussion forum between social solidarity economy actors
in 2009
What do we mean by
territory?
The term has
different meanings in different cultures and languages. For us a territory is a
system of geographically based actions that organise social, cultural, and
economic relationships where:
• People live and
share a common heritage, a life experience and fortunes within a given physical
area. (Irrespective of whether they are
native locally, have “adopted” the territory, are migrants, visitors...)
• Organisations
exist in their multiple forms and functions (businesses, communities, networks,
mutual aid and support structures, sectors of production, etc..)
• Individuals and
organisations co-exist within a given bio-geographic environment
• All these
components exist on a larger (macro) or smaller (micro) scale
These territorial
relationships (whose "local" bases may vary depending on the nature
of the interpersonal relationship in question) are necessarily open to the
world. Interdependencies have multiplied
at global level. In solving concrete problems such as housing, food,
development, infrastructure, services, employment, the sensible use of natural
resources, the allocation of available resources, etc. we need to take the
following into account:
The constraints
and opportunities of globalised production and distribution of goods and
services
The inability of
current international governance to manage the natural and cultural resources
(common planetary resources, shared values) fairly and effectively, as well as any appropriate kind of flow that
is adapted to different situations (ecosystems, overcrowded cities, fragile or
vulnerable areas, etc.)
The need for new
structures and forms of organisation (institutional, economic, social but also
transversal, financial, fiscal, technical, etc...) These solutions need to be
created by good territorial governance[1].
What are the key points that solidarity economy
coupled with sustainable local development can put forward as proposals to:
-
Improve the daily lives
of people and communities?
-
With a view to
establishing an alternative model underpinned by shared values, towards
strategies and pathways to transition and change of direction
We would like to
invite our readers to join us in this internet forum that may help a new
editorial team to emerge?? Or maybe continue our journey on other paths?
Food Sovereignty, Solidarity Economy and Local Development
Judith Hitchman
The Food
Sovereignty movement is twenty years old. Founded by the Via Campesina
(viacampesina.org), who now represent over 200 million producers, small-scale
family farmers, landless peoples’ movements and urban poor, 180 organisations
in over 80 countries. It is also supported by allies, such as Urgenci
(urgenci.net), Friends of the Earth (foei.org), the ETC group (etcgroup.org), TNI (tni.org)
and many others.
What is the
connection between food sovereignty and sustainable local development? How has
this dimension evolved over time? Where is it going now?
A number of
parallel processes have occurred in the last couple of decades; they have not
necessarily been fully documented as yet in terms of their interconnections. On
one hand, the increased stranglehold by multinational companies of our production
systems has become more extreme in the neo-liberal phase of capitalism. In the
case of food, which is a fundamental human right, this has involved global
land-grabbing, patents on living organisms and seeds, combined with increased
GMO technologies applied to plants and livestock, use of pesticides and other
chemical inputs and total control of human food chains as well as water
supplies. Hardly what readers of this newsletter understand as sustainable
local development! It is something that the Food Sovereignty movement is very
actively fighting on the ground, sometimes at the cost of human lives, because
what the transnational seed merchants, agro-chemical and agribusiness
corporations are trying to foist on our society would literally be the death of
us, and the planet as we know it.
The
counter-movement to this destructive practice is the combination of Food
Sovereignty and solidarity economy, which together provide most of the answers.
Almost all of the various articles I have had the pleasure to write for this
Newsletter have tried to shed some insight into how this is happening in the
various parts of the world, by describing the wonderful projects I have been
fortunate enough to visit and in which I have been involved.
Those of us who
have the privilege of working on these issues are aware that all the solutions
to feeding the world’s growing population do exist; that achieving the human
right to food implies following the road of sustainable local development in
the real sense of the term, not just mere lip-service or green-washing by CSR
(Corporate Social Responsibility), or pseudo-green governmental policies. There
are so many solutions that could be scaled up: small-scale organic farming,
Community Land Trusts, Community Supported Agriculture and other emerging
direct distribution systems like WI (Without Intermediaries) in Greece, genuine
farmer’s markets, community gardens, allotments, edible landscapes, transition
towns…and the list goes on.
Much progress is
being made at UN Institutional level by the Civil Society Mechanism
(http://www.csm4cfs.org/) to drive Voluntary Guidelines on Land Tenure,
Governance of Forestry and Fisheries as well responsible agricultural
investment through the reformed Committee for World Food Security of which it is
part. The Food for Cities programme of the FAO, where Urgenci is also active is
also helping define global food policies for 2014-2020. FAO consultations in
2012 with civil society for Europe and Central Asia in Azerbaijan involved a
keen examination of how solidarity economy can be part of building sustainable
local development that includes food security and food sovereignty. More
recently, the ILO and UNRISD have expressed their interest in solidarity
economy, including Food sovereignty as potential ways of overcoming the global
crises. We have tried to inform our readers of some of these aspects in various
issues.
What remains to be
done if we are to combat and mitigate climate change and to build a more
sustainable local and indeed global form of development is to now join the
dotted lines between these and the other key elements of sustainable local
development: complementary currencies to demonetarise local trade; community
banks; renewable energies; community driven services and sustainable forms of property
ownership, and last but not least, more direct democracy and participatory
budgeting.
The articles
published in this Newsletter over the last ten years have illustrated most of
these themes. What remains to be done is to carry this movement forward through
our networks, and document the progress made. Being part of this Newsletter has
helped me to mature in terms of my personal development and learning journey.
It has been a privilege and a pleasure to be part of this team, to share and to
make a small contribution.
About the Newsletter
This Newsletter
is published in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia and in
Japanese. It has been produced on a voluntary basis since the first issue in
2003.
The Editorial
team wishes to thank the following volunteers for their support in translation
and revision:
Michel Colin (Brazil)
Paula Garuz Naval (Ireland)
Évéline Poirier (Canada)
Brunilda Rafael
(France)
We also wish to
thank the Civil Policy Research Institute (CPRI) of Seikatsu Club in Japan for
the Japanese translation and AKSI UI for the translation to Bahasa Indonesia.
Our Newsletters
are available on the WEB:
http://local-development.blogspot.com/
To contact us
(for information, feedback, to subscribe or unsubscribe):
Yvon Poirier ypoirier@videotron.ca
