The World Social Forum on Transformative Economies is a process of convergence, both locally and internationally, between all those initiatives, movements and ways of approaching the economy that have, from the local level, overcome the great challenges of today..
The main objective is to recognize the complementarities and common objectives of the different movements of the transformative economies, in order to converge and give answers to the global challenges. This event will therefore be one more stage in a broad process of convergence between movements.
It is important to highlight that the WSFTE is a thematic forum that is part of the World Social Forum (WSF), the largest gathering of civil society to find solutions to the problems of our time. The WSF is an “open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and forging effective action on the part of organizations and movements of civil society (…) committed to building a global society directed towards fruitful relationships among people and between humankind and the planet” as established in the Charter of Principles.
RIPESS Intercontinental is one of the networks promoting the WSFTE. For us, the forum is a very important occasion to practice alternative networking, enterprise, community and care for life, which is the characteristic of the SSE. We believe that this approach of networking and confluence can be transferred to other levels and this is our contribution. Therefore, we encourage all the people, projects, entities or confluences working to transform the economy to participate in the WSFTE 2020!
If you want more information, you can visit the WSFTE 2020 webpage.
What does the WSFTE understand by Transformative Economies?
The WSFTE understands as transformative economies those that place the person and the quality of life at the centre of the interventions. We can classify them into four large movements of movements, although many times the proposed solutions are hybrid:
- Social Solidarity Economy (SSE). Based on the traditional social economy, these initiatives include new practices of self-management and organization, promoting the democratization of the economy and focusing on the satisfaction of needs. Some examples are fair trade or ethical finance, based on the foundations of cooperativism.
- Commons-based economy. Based on community management, this perspective breaks the state-market duality and creates other legitimate spaces for production, management and allocation of resources.
- Feminist economies. Like the other transformative economies, it seeks to displace capital and markets as the centre of socio-economic organization, placing life and its processes at the centre. However, in feminist economies, care, the key role of women and feminized values in this process take a relevant role.
- Agroecology and food sovereignty. This movement works to rethink the agrifood model as a key to sustaining life, the relationship with the Earth and natural cycles. It is closely linked to the defense of land, social environmentalism and other social movements such as the degrowth.