On 9 July, RIPESS held an online discussion entitled “Decoding the differences between social and solidarity economy (SSE), social entrepreneurship and related initiatives“. In it, the author of the text of the same name, Yvon Poirier, gave a short presentation in which the most important points can be summarised as follows:
- The Social Solidarity Economy is a renewed response to inequality and exclusion in the face of the effects of economic globalisation that advocates resisting and building.
- Brief history of the movements: The Social Economy has been active for 150 years. The SSE appeared in the mid-1980s and has been gaining international recognition for the last 20 years, with a United Nations resolution in 2023 and an ILO resolution the year before.
- It looks at growing initiatives that promote social entrepreneurship as a fundamental solution to solving people’s problems. Some in this movement say that social entrepreneurship is SSE. Among them, the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship (created in 2020), which includes as partners/members the other organisations discussed in the text and is publicly announced as a partner of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
- Other initiatives promoted by the business sector are Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); the so-called “inclusive business”, the well-known social enterprises or impact investments.
- He makes a critical analysis of these initiatives, concluding that this “do-good” economic approach helps society; however, this is not enough, as it does not address the root causes of the problems.
- This is why, while working hand in hand with these entities, we must not stop fighting for more fundamental changes in our societies, to build together an economy based on the needs expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, such as the right to food, housing, health care, social services, etc. A core value of the SSE is the primacy of people and social ends over capital – we could add “and the planet over capital”. This is our fundamental mission.
From his experience and commitment over the last 20 years, both in RIPESS and in the intercontinental networks of the SSE advocacy ecosystem, Yvon Poirier has written this text which is now online on the SocioEco.org platform: Decoding the differences between social and solidarity economy (SSE), social entrepreneurship, and related initiatives (socioeco.org).
Under the leadership of Sandra Moreno, executive secretary of RIPESS, an analysis was carried out with, first, the academic Leandro Morais, from UNESP, in Sao Paulo. He welcomed the possibility of discussing and bringing to debate concepts that are growing in several countries, such as Corporate Social Responsibility, Social Investment, social entrepreneurship, etc.
He also defined the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) as heterogeneous. He stated that there are difficulties in delimiting its activities, measurements and characteristics, given that they are economic activities linked to different sectors and stages of production and are also very diverse in their composition. In each country or region, different terms and expressions are used. It should be remembered, however, that throughout the discussion and first of all by Yvon, both the ILO’s Declaration for Decent Work of 2022 and the UNGA declaration, approved a year later, were mentioned, in which there is a definition that, if not perfect, for the time being encompasses quite a number of terms and expressions:
recognizes that the social and solidarity economy encompasses enterprises, organizations and other entities that are engaged in economic, social and environmental activities to serve the collective and/or general interest, which are based on the principles of voluntary cooperation and mutual aid, democratic and/or participatory
governance, autonomy and independence and the primacy of people and social purpose over capital in the distribution and use of surpluses and/or profits, as well as assets, that social and solidarity economy entities aspire to long-term viability and sustainability and to the transition from the informal to the formal economy and operate in all sectors of the economy, that they put into practice a set of values which are intrinsic to their functioning and consistent with care for people and planet, equality and fairness, interdependence, self-governance, transparency and accountability and the attainment of decent work and livelihoods and that, according to national circumstances, the social and solidarity economy includes cooperatives, associations, mutual societies, foundations, social enterprises, self-help groups and other entities operating in accordance with the values and principles of the social and solidarity economy,
Leandro concluded with the urgent need for structural transformations of the economic system, giving as an example the capacity of human beings to reach Mars today, while on our planet there is poverty, famine, lack of health services, etc.
It was then the turn of Akkanut Wantanasombut, from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, who discussed the ways in which this text lands in a context where SSE is increasingly seen and recognised as a real alternative both to the various crises that plague the planet and people and to achieving the SDGs at the global level. He praised Yvon’s textfor addressing the problems and also talking about possible solutions
He highlighted the enormous importance of both collective ownership and democratic governance in decision-making methods. Looking at so-called ‘social enterprises’, he stated that they focus on individual ownership and corporate/capitalist solutions, asking whether they are committed to the long term or just want to use Corporate Social Responsibility for public relations and the short term?
Chantal Line Carpentier, the co-director of UNTFSSE and Head of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in New York shared her views on the text, calling it a critical analysis and highlighting the need for next steps in building bridges. She added that “We should all be happy that private sector entities are seeking social impact” and spoke of the responsibility of our sector entities to leverage on these knowledge-sharing and policy-making tools such as the SSE Encyclopaedia; the UN Resolution for the SSE 2023 or the ILO Resolution for Decent Work and the SSE 2022.
In response to the question on the definition of the SSE, he acknowledged that the SSE is a sector that has its own definition due to the specificity that they are services that are not provided by other sectors, at an affordable price. Finally, he advocated opening a dialogue with the other business models in all sectors of the economy, including the concepts taken into account in the text and asking ourselves how they operate in the market through data collection programmes, promotion of these activities in the public interest… In short: How to project this structure?
Finally, Mansour Omeira, Social Innovation Specialist at the Cooperative, Social and Solidarity Economy Unit of the ILO in Geneva, where he has also held various positions, such as Equality and Non-Discrimination Specialist, Research and Knowledge Management Officer and Labour Economist, concluded the dialogue.
It made the correction with regard to non-SSE companies and introduced the concept of “profit maximising companies”.
It also pointed to the fact that the SSE contributes to the transition from the informal to the formal economy, which is of utmost importance in countries in regions such as Africa or Latin America, where among SSE workers, many belong to the informal economy.
After these interesting interventions, in which the dialogue could have continued at length, Leandro and Akkanut made some contributions focused on the regions of Latin America and Asia, where SSE concepts can be affected by regional realities such as the existence and generalisation of the ‘popular economy’ in Latin America.
Finally, the questions from the audience, which Yvon Poirier, together with some notes from Mansour, answered, for example, to the idea that the reality of Africa is not yet being so affected by these initiatives of Social Economy or Corporate Social Responsibility but that it was of the utmost necessity to take into account both the problems and the nomenclatures with which these projects are masked, which in the end seem to seek the benefit of the few as opposed to that of the planet and the community.
Hamish Jenkins, contributor to RIPESS Intercontinental and editor of the presented publication, concluded the event with some conclusions There are two complementary points of view to observe this phenomenon in the future:
- One is a “static” view that can be used to determine which economic and social entities are part of the SSE and which are not. This can be used to filter out which entities could benefit from regulatory or financial and other support, a determination that can be enshrined in national and local laws to promote the SSE.
- The second is a “dynamic” view, in which ILO SSE definitions and UN resolutions constitute a “sphere of gravity” towards which other spheres, such as the “green economy”, the “circular economy” and, at least to a large extent, “social entrepreneurship”, can gravitate. The three main criteria relate to:
- The primacy of people and planet over capital and the use of profits or surpluses. This calls into question certain proposals, such as impact investing, which place profit on a par with social objectives and which may also end up being driven by investors rather than democratically determined community objectives.
- Democratic governance that goes beyond parliamentary representation and encompasses the way decisions are made in the workplace, which should go far beyond consultation by management, but become genuine co-management (e.g. avoiding redundancies to move to cheaper locations, so that the company remains profitable).
- Address macro-systemic issues related to global tax justice (fair taxation of the wealthiest individuals, shareholders and corporations), fairness in sovereign debt resolution mechanisms, social and environmental regulations, among others. These affect the prospects for public policies to realise the goals of the SSE and human and environmental rights more generally. This is what is at stake at the upcoming UN Conference on Financing for Development in 2025 and to which the global SSE movement, including the Working Group (UNTFSSE), should fully commit.
