Co-construction of public policies for the promotion of SSE, and advocacy strategies and tools from local to global – Sharing experiences and approaches

On Tuesday 14^th of December, RIPESS members and other SSE actors from around the world got together to exchange on advocacy strategies and collaboration with local, national, and international policymakers for co-constructing public policies to strengthen SSE ecosystems around the world. The Director of the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation, Carme Gual, together with Shigeru Tanaka, joint-coordinator of RIPESS, officially welcomed the participants at the opening of the webinar.

More concretely, the different sections of the webinar focused on sharing international advocacy progress for the promotion of SSE from a RIPESS perspective, as well as sharing concrete examples of advocacy strategies for the co-construction of supportive SSE public policies at all levels, and finally sharing of advocacy tools used by the SSE networks and actors.

Prior to the discussion sessions, the co-leaders of RIPESS working area on intercontinental advocacy summarised the advances on SSE recognition and promotion in international arenas thanks in part to RIPESS’s advocacy work within the United Nations Task Force for SSE, the Global Alliance for the international recognition of SSE, the Global Social Economy Forum and the UN High-Level Political Forum and other areas.

In the first session of the webinar participants heard from experiences of co-construction of SSE public policies in Africa, Latin America and Europe. Elyse Pierrette, General Secretary of RAESS Africa network, and President of the Cameroon SSE network provided inputs on how the SSE network and other national and local actors are participating in the co-construction process currently taking place in Cameroon, and the strategy of the network in the participatory process.

Participants also had the opportunity to hear about an interesting process of transformation of a village into an agroecological reference project in Jalisco State in Mexico. The small village of El Limón started an evolution in their food production process some years ago; it ended by co-constructed policy changes around the region, introducing SSE elements in the production, distribution and consumption of food.

Drazen Simlesa, who is General Coordinator in RIPESS EU (Europe SSE network) highlighted the importance of exchanging knowledge and good practices amongst SSE networks for promoting SSE policies globally. In the experience he shared, the Croatian SSE network worked together with French networks of RIPESS EU to influence in the creation of SSE policies at local level in Croatia.

The importance of resources platforms in knowledge and information sharing is crucial to ensure SSE networks and actors learn from each other and capitalise on strategies and knowledge from around the globe. In this sense, the RIPESS SSE resources platform Socioeco.org presented its vast catalogue of SSE resources to the participants.

The second section of the webinar focused on the exchange of SSE advocacy tools used by networks and actors for advocacy at all levels.

Tools used in Brazil, Ecuador, and Uruguay to successfully develop SSE public policies were presented by Karin Berlien, who is the coordinator of RIPESS LAC (Latin America and the Caribbean). Eri Trinurini, Board member of the Bina Swadaya Foundation and representative of ASEC (RIPESS Asia SSE network), presented a mapping of the SSE landscape of 6 Asian countries, implemented thanks to a collaboration with the ILO (International Labour Organization), developed by ASEC and being used as an advocacy tool.

The great advocacy tools and online platform that the French SSE local governments’ network Réseau des collectivités Territoriales pour une Économie Solidaire (RTES) use were highlighted and presented as well.

Also, Jocelyn Parot, Urgenci’s General Secretary presented Urgenci’s advocacy guide and platform for Community Supported Agriculture.

The webinar was therefore a great occasion to highlight the advocacy work that RIPESS members are doing from the local to the global, and how important it is to work in networks at all levels. Laure Jongejans, RIPESS Executive Secretary stated that the reinforcement of SSE networks is essential to strengthening SSE ecosystems at all levels.

This webinar was organised within the framework of the “Advocacy for the promotion of SSE as a strategy to achieve sustainable development (SDGs) in (post)Covid-19 context” project funded and supported by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation.

You can watch it HERE

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