Coordinated by the RIPESS

For over 15-20 years, many international organizations have been set up to promote SSE, share experiences and approaches and deepen their knowledge of challenges and opportunities. Some are sector networks such as INAISE in social finance, or WFTO in fair trade, or even more comprehensive networks such RIPESS, GSEF, or the ICA (for cooperatives), AMI (for mutual). They are growing in the context of the various crisis in the dominant system. In addition, these SSE practitioner’s organizations are joined by researchers’ organizations and more recently by international agencies, especially those in the UN TFSSE. At the same time, on the scale of each continent or sub-regions, collaborations between networks and/or SSE support organizations from different countries are being set up, for example in the Mediterranean, in the Latin America Andean region, in Western Africa, etc. Finally a large number of international NGOs and International Cooperation Services also contribute as regards the development of the SSE at a local level, or on related topics such as local development, strengthening of civil society activities, etc.

In other words, collaborations and exchanges are numerous at every level, whether at national level, continental or global. In recent years, many South-South collaborations were added to the South-North and North-North collaborations. Many conferences and seminars, either of practitioners or researchers, and often both, are held in all continents. Considering this context though, there are many challenges to face in order to ensure collaboration and synergies that are relevant and have a real impact on local SSE actors.

The meeting of the Working Group will encourage participants to share their experiences and ideas on the subject, to identify the challenges more precisely and finally to consider guidelines for future collaborations.

Refer to the preparatory document and contributions.

The call to contributions is now closed.