Solidarity Economy System of Information in Brazil

1. Solidarische Oeconomie Kongress ’09 – Wien, Boku 20-22. Februar 2009 SOLIDARITY ECONOMY SYSTEM OF INFORMATION: VISIBILITY AND STRENGTHENING OF SOLIDARITY ECONOMY IN BRAZIL Jonas de Oliveira Bertucci (University of Brasília) Roberto Marinho Alves da Silva (National Secretariat of Solidarity Economy) Valmor Schiochet (University of Blumenau)

2. SIES Is a pioneering initiative for identification and characterization of Solidarity Economy Enterprises (EES) and support organizations. This initiative begun in 2003 when the National Secretariat of Solidarity Economy in the Ministry of Labor and Employment (SENAES/MTE) and the Solidarity Economy Brazilian Forum (FBES – an articulation space of civil society), jointly undertaken the task of conducting a mapping of the Solidarity Economy in Brazil.

3. To establish a national database of information on Solidarity Economy; To strengthen and integrate the Solidarity Economy Enterprises establishing information networks, registering initiatives and developing catalogs of products and commercialization processes; To encourage the visibility of the ES, strengthening its organizational processes and enhancing the support and the participation of society; To subsidize public processes of recognition and certification of the initiatives of ES; To subsidize the formulating process of public policies and drawing up a legal framework for the ES; To facilitate the development of studies and research on the ES, and; To build appropriate indexes and indicators for assessing Solidarity Economy reality. OBJECTIVES

4. THE CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES OF THE SIES • Working Group on Mapping for Solidarity Economy (management process and conceptualization) • Consensus around the minimum concepts required; • Prerequisite to guide the entire process of collecting and organizing the information; • No intention to solve or inhibit the discussions on the theoretical and practical understanding of the Solidarity Economy in Brazil; • Objectivity in the technical concept; • It was not just a conceptual challenge, but also political.

5. SOLIDARITY COOPERATION ECONOMIC ACTION SELF-MANAGEMENT THE CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES OF THE SIES 1- Solidarity Economy The set of economic activities - production, distribution, consumption, savings and credit - organized and carried out jointly by workers in the form of self-management. This general concept sets the values and principles of the Solidarity Economy.

6. THE CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES OF THE SIES Solidarity Economy dimensions

7. THE CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES OF THE SIES 2- Solidarity Economy Enterprises (EES) Are those organizations: • Collective - not family organizations, but associations, cooperatives, self-managed enterprises, groups of production, exchange clubs, networks, etc; • Whose participants or members are workers of urban and rural areas engaged in the management of activities, as well as the allocation of results; • Permanent, including ventures that are in operation and those which are in the process of implementation, with a group of participants constituted and defined economic activities; • Which may or not have a legal record; it means that the real existence prevails; • Which carry out economic activities, be it production of goods, services, funds (credit cooperatives and popular savings), commercialization (purchase, sale and exchange of materials, products and services) and consumption;

8. Typologies of the EES The solidarity economy enterprises are of two kinds: Associations of small independent producers, who make their purchases, sales, savings and/or loans collectively. The income derived by the members of the EES is probably complementary to other sources of individual or familiar income. it is necessary to distinguish the EES that work with credit and other forms of solidarity finances, from the other EES that provide commercialization services or improvement of products for the members. • Productive associations in which the partners work together and with this work they have their living. Although the members of this group of enterprises maybe very poor in their majority these ventures tend to gain greater visibility and importance to the movement.

9. THE CONCEPTUAL CHALLENGES OF THE SIES 3- Solidarity Economy Support Organizations (EAF) Are those organizations that develop a diversity of activities of direct support to the solidarity economy enterprises, such as training, advice, incubation, organizational and technical assistance and monitoring. In the SIES, the EAF are defined not by the organizational characteristics, but by the activities developed by them (advice, assistance, etc.) and by the public involved (solidarity economy enterprises). 4- Public Policy of Solidarity Economy (PPES) Under the SIES, public policies for solidarity economy are understood as those actions, projects or programs that are developed or implemented by the authorities of direct and indirect spheres of the State municipal, regional or federal with the objective of strengthening the solidarity economy. In 2009 it will be a new module in the SIES.

10. 27 management state committees was formed in 2004, involving more than 230 entities and over 600 people (coordinators, interviewers, typing staff); The active participation of members in the coordination and implementation of activities was required, among the Government, the representations of the state forums (support entities and solidarity economy enterprises), universities and social movements that acted with solidarity economy; To ensure quality and reliability of information the entire technical staff (coordinators, supervisors, interviewers, etc.) received training on the content and methodology of mapping. SIES MANAGEMENT: A PARTICIPATIVE PROCESS

11. KNOWLEDGE AND VISIBILITY OF THE SOLIDARITY ECONOMY

12. 21.859 EES 1.687.035 Participants 63% Men 37% Women Area of Operation: 48% Rural 35% Urban 17% Rural/Urban 2.934 municipalities (52% of the territory)

13. Gradual expansion or high mortality? Number of enterprises per year of foundation

14. TYPE OF ORGANIZATION REASONS FOR THE CREATION OF EES 1 - Alternative to unemployment (46%) 2 - Complementing the income of members (44%) 3 - Obtain higher earnings (36%) 4 - Possibility of collective activity (27%) 5 - Condition for access to credit (25%) Question of multiple answers

15. ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES

16. AVERAGE MONTHLY REMUNERATION

17. SELF-MANAGEMENT Question of multiple answers

18. CHALENGES

19. ACHIEVEMENTS • Since its beginning, the SIES has allowed: • Location of the EES so they can be mobilized to participate in events as the conferences of Solidarity Economy and fairs; • Data for diagnoses and proposals in public spaces to evaluation and the propositions for public policies by the society; • Information for public programs (National Campaign of Solidarity Economy, reference to the Brazilian System of Fair Trade and Solidarity, etc.); • Identification of networks and chains of Solidarity Economy and diagnosis of the main professional and social qualification demands of the EES;

20. CONTINUITY: THERE IS STILL MUCH TO BE DONE • Certainly, the continuity of this process depends on the ability to deal with some challenges: • Continuity of the process of identifying Solidarity Economy Enterprises and update the existent database. The SIES is not a census of the Solidarity Economy and also not a research based on statistical samples. It must be permanently extended to each period, considering the dynamic process of emergence of new Solidarity Economy Enterprises (and also the breaking up of old ones). • Development of instruments by the movement to make use of its possibilities, as the “farejador solidário” – geo locator of solidarity enterprises products and services;

21. Public access to SIES database: www.sies.mte.gov.br Solidarity Economy Brazilian forum mapping tool: www.fbes.org.br/farejador