Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy
Information on the purpose of your organization
RIPESS? mission is to build and promote the social solidarity economy (SSE), which takes into account the social and ethical dimension in all its economic activities. Thus the SSE aims to produce, exchange and consume goods and services that answer the economic and social needs of the local and international communities. This social and solidarity economy values work over capital. It aims at satisfying the needs of individuals and communities rather than seeking to maximize profit or financial gains. Solidarity-based economic units rest upon a model of democratic decision-making and a participatory and transparent management system, which aims at ensuring collective ownership and responsibility for the outcomes of economic activities, as well as ongoing mobilisation and contributions to ensure their success. The contribution of this economy is appraised by its incidence on local, national and international development, mainly, through the creation of permanent jobs, the development of new services, the enhancement of living standards, the contribution to gender equity, the protection of the environment and the creation of wealth under ethical conditions.
After international meetings in 1997 and in 2001, RIPESS was launched in 2002 as a network of continental networks that connects social solidarity economy networks. The continental networks (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, Oceania) in turn bring together national and sectoral networks. RIPESS believes in the importance of global solidarity in order to build and strengthen an economy that puts people and planet front and center. RIPESS organizes global forums every four years and is a nexus for learning, information sharing and international collaboration.
The network?s objectives are the following:
- support the creation and consolidation of national and continental networks for the promotion of the social solidarity economy and its interconnection at continental and intercontinental levels.
- enable services and exchanges directed to develop management capacities and political incidence of the social solidarity economy actors at continental and intercontinental levels.
- influence multilateral public organizations and international civil society organizations in order to promote social solidarity economy worldwide.
- contribute to the social and political recognition of the social solidarity economy as a sustainable, worldwide, strategy for social equity development.
- promote, with criteria of North-South rotation, periodic opportunities to meet for the analysis, projection and evaluation of the actions undertaken by the international social solidarity economy movement worldwide.
- mobilize persons, financial, and material resources in order to comply with its institutional objectives.
Information on your programmes and activities in areas relevant to the subject of the Summit and in which country or counties they are carried out.
RIPESS is actively engaged in advocacy work on the post-2015 sustainable development agenda and on issues related to the Financing for Development (FfD) global agenda. In 2013-2014, RIPESS carried out a year-long process of consultation on the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with global and grassroots organizations from all continents, which involved thousands of groups involved in social solidarity economy movements. The RIPESS recommendations received about 500 endorsements from organisations in nearly 70 different countries. On July 3rd, 2014, RIPESS presented the SSE Recommendations at the UN High Level Political Forum in New York. The recommendations, available in 3 languages (English, Spanish and French), were officially delivered to UN State Members, Delegates and Agencies.
The network also carried advocacy work on Financing for Development (FfD) issues to inform the stakeholders involved in the FfD process about the existing social solidarity finance tools and practices, and how they can serve the goal of sustainable development.
The network has also been involved in spaces for civil society participation in the UN processes facilitated by the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (NGLS), with representatives of RIPESS taking part, for example, in the civil society steering committee for the 8-9 April, 2015, UN General Assembly Hearings in preparation for the Third International Conference on FfD, and in the civil society Selection Committee for the 25-27 September United Nations Summit for the adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
Information on activities at the national or international levels
RIPESS acts as a nexus for learning, information sharing and international collaboration. The network is structured around five continental networks, with its Board of Directors comprised of two representatives of each continent. Since its very beginning, even before the formal constitution of RIPESS, the networks have been organizing global forums every four years to bring together social solidarity economy (SSE) actors from around the world: meetings have been held in Lima (1997), Quebec (2001), Dakar (2005), Luxembourg (2009) and Manila (2013). The next intercontinental forum will take place in Latin America in 2017.
The network encourages exchanges between SSE actors on a national, continental and intercontinental basis. Through regular electronic and face-to-face meetings, the Board members and the continental networks they represent share information and work together in the working groups set up to achieve the action plan of RIPESS in several work axes (eg. capacity-building, communications, public policies, United Nations process). The network also maintains a RSS feed, a website and a social media presence to share information about the social solidarity economy, and publishes a periodic newsletter to give visibility to the work of its members.
At the international level, the members of RIPESS also work together in several United Nations fora, where they carry out advocacy work to promote the views of social solidarity economy actors. For instance, RIPESS participates as an observer in the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy (TFSSE), which brings together 19 UN agencies and inter-governmental organizations and five SSE networks, since the creation of the task force in September 2013. RIPESS also works with other social movements and civil society organizations (CSOs) in their work on international issues, and facilitates exchanges between its members and CSOs working on global issues.
Organization have an annual report? (YES/NO) (should contain financial statements and a list of financial sources and contributions, including governmental contributions)?
Yes -
AnnualreportandfinancialstatementRIPESS_2014-2015.pdf
List of members of the governing body of your organization, and their countries of nationality
Luis Eduardo Salcedo (Colombia)
Altagracia Villareal (Mexico)
David Thompson (Australia)
Denison Jayasooria (Malaysia)
Emily Kawano (United States)
Jason Nardi (Italia)
Judith Hitchman (France)
Madani Koumaré (Mali)
Shigeru Tanaka (Japan)
Yvon Poirier (Canada)
Copy of the constitution and/or by-laws of the organization (WORD or PDF only), or a weblink to it
Internal-Regulations-RIPESS-English.pdf
