by: Miguel Yasuyuki Hirota (mig@olccjp.net)

1. 1. SE’s achievements in Asia

The arrival of the concept of SE to Asia was rather late in comparison with other continents and it was only October 2007 when the 1^st Asian Forum for SE took place at Manila, the Philippines.  Workshops on this new economy took place in October 2008 at Bangkok, Thailand and in March 2009 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia when the Asian Alliance for SE (AA4SE, http://www.aa4se.com/) was established, but the term SE is still very little known, even in comparison with Europe or Latin America.

But this does not mean that SE experiences are foreign to Asia: there are indeed a number of unarticulated grass-root practices in many countries, such as consumers’ coops and NPO Banks in Japan, social enterprises in Korea, microfinance initiatives (remember that this movement was born in Bangladesh!) all over the region, local currencies in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, elderly-care groups in Japan and CSR-minded small businesses throughout Southeast Asia, just to name a few.

1. 2. Challenges for Asia:

Some challenges should be taken into account seriously if we are to promote SE and to articulate its players all over this continent.

Linguistic diversity: it should be remembered that Asia has a number of mutually-unintelligible languages, such as: Bengali (Bangladesh), Burmese (Myanmar), Cambodian (Cambodia), Hindi-Urdu (India and Pakistan), Japanese (Japan), Korean (North and South Korea), Lao (Laos), Mandarin (China and Taiwan), Malay-Indonesian (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore), Mongolian (Mongolia), Sinhalese (Sri Lanka), Filipino (the Philippines), Tamil (India, Sri Lanka etc.), Thai (Thailand), Vietnamese (Vietnam).  While in some countries English is widely spoken, it should be taken into account that most SE players in Asia only speak their respective country’s official language (Thai if they live in Thailand, for instance), making it tough for SE players to be articulated and to communicate each other beyond the language (=national) border.

This linguistic diversity poses another challenge on promoting SE in each Asian country too: since most people, including professors and public servants, are often not good at English, it is required that at least some basic information on this topic should be given in each country’s official language so that opinion leaders throughout the continent could share our perspective on SE and let it known to people in their respective language.

Geographical and psychological distance from other continents: another important remark is that most countries where the SE movement has been consolidated are non-English-speaking countries (France, Italy, Spain, Latin America and Québec) with which Asians usually do not have strong relationship. The traditional lack of links between these continents makes it harder for Asians to grasp what is happening globally in terms of SE and to exchange experiences with them.

1. 3. Perspectives and proposals for the next decade

Although the consolidation of SE players in Asia is still in an early stage, the coming years will see important events, such as the 3^rd Asian Forum in Malaysia in 2011 and the 5^th RIPESS conference in 2013.  It is quite important to make the best use of all available resources in order to maximise our synergy and take more steps forward.  Some proposals will be given below to help promote the SE movement in Asia:

Creation of multilingual platforms: the lack of information on SE and of international communication among Asian SE players who do not speak English has been the biggest hurdle, so it is crucial to set up platforms to get it over.  I would like to suggest the creation of following tools so that more Asians should be familiar with SE and be articulated better.  Obviously a huge amount of money would be required for translation services, but this cost should be regarded as something indispensable and efforts should be done to win such a funding.

-       Creation of another portal website on SE in Asian languages (not only English but also Chinese, Japanese, Thai etc.): this is not to deny AA4SE’s efforts so far to share information, but it would be ideal if more information could be provided in more Asian languages so that SE players, researchers, policymakers etc. could learn what SE is, how SE is practiced in Asia and other continents etc.

-       Creation of multilingual communication method: the multilingual discussion groups managed by Alliance 21 WSSE (now ALOE) with translation service between English, French and Spanish / Portuguese has been a key factor on articulating SE players and to stimulate communications among them, but it is crucial to provide similar services among key Asian languages if we are to expect same results. More SE players are expected to be articulated only when they feel linguistically comfortable, so it is indispensable to set up a platform in which people could communicate in Chinese, Indonesia, Japanese, Thai and other Asian languages.

Exchange of young SE players / students: it is essential that more Asians should understand how SE has been growing in the world in order to transfer such experiences to their own countries.  So it would be helpful if some programmes could be set up to promote exchange of the youth.  The mutual exchange (not only Asian youth to other continents but youths from other continents to Asia) would strengthen mutual understanding in terms of SE practices, and such articulators will help both quantitative and qualitative development of solidarity economy in Asia.

All we would like to say has been summarized beautifully in our new year card. Much thanks to Riku for designing the card.

2010 is going to be harder for us and more actions are needed. Let’s conserve our energy and move forward together.

Junya “Lek” Yimprasert

Thai Labour Campaign

May you all have a very…

posted by Ed Canela on www.iisociale.ning.com

Inspired by the stories of grassroots practitioners who graduated from the SAIDICARD-
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) MS degree program on International
Community Economic Development last September 27, SAIDI School of OD and the
Coalition of Socially Responsible SMEs in Asia (CSRSME Asia) will be launching a
“TalipapangKaunlaran” (Development Marketplace) Forum on 23
October 2009, Friday, at the University of the Philippines Hotel, Diliman,
Quezon City.

The TalipapangKaunlaran Forum is meant to instill appreciation of the Filipino
initiatives and best practices in social enterprise development. It is envisaged as a
marketplace of ideas among Filipino social enterprise development practitioners.

The Forum will provide the opportunity for a select group of 30 thinker-practitioners
to explore the different mental models and the rich variety of innovations, in place
and emerging, in social enterprise development in the Philippines.

1. Building a Shared Vision – Ben Quinones, CSRME Asia
2. Subsidiarity Movement – Sixto K. Roxas, MTKISD
3. Social Enterpreneurship – Ed Morato, ABS-CBN Bayan Academy
4. Social Local Economy Development – Sixto K. Roxas, MTKISD
5. Inner City Development Cooperative – FONUS
6. Microfinance Products and Services – Aristotle Alip, CARD MRI
7. Palengkenomics – Philip Camara
8. Public Market Projects – Wyden King and Robert Abao
9. Hapinoy – Bam Aquino, MicroVentures, Inc.
10. Fair Housing Project – Jun Simon, Bumbaran Development Corp.
11. Reaching Out to the Forgotten Bottom – Jae Estuar
12. OFW Investment Flow – Robert Abao, OFW Savings and Loans Coop
13. Peace Development – GZO Peace Institute

by Miguel Yasuyuki Hirota

The symposium “End of Neoliberalism and Solidarity Economy” (organised by Pacific Asia Resource Center) and Ohdake Foundation) was held on Sun, 07^th June in the afternoon at Sôhyô Kaikan, Chiyoda, Tokyo. More than 150 people came to the venue with the maximum capacity of 100, reflecting the surging interest for solidarity economy in a country where this term remains generally unknown to the public. I hope the same interest will bring more people to the 2^nd Asian Forum on Solidarity Economy to be held from Sat, 7^th to Mon, 9^th November at United Nations University and Aoyama Gakuin University.

Four guests gave their presentations on this subject within the severe time limit of 20 minutes for each one. The first speaker, Andrew DeWit, Professor at the College of Economics, Rikkyô University, began with showing that nowadays even Republicans and CEOs criticize harshly economic policies during the Bush administration, pointing out that the U.S. economy in the last ten years was a FIRE (Finance, Insurance and Real Estate) economy as its growth was limited to these fields. He showed another comment that governments will enhance regulations for decades as a backlash to the excessive market economy and that the current crisis is not a temporary recession but is something equivalent to the Great Depression, showing it with tables. He appreciated Obama administration as it has been proactively working for renewable energy, hinting the possibility that the US politics may turn from Southern (religious and too ideology-oriented) to Californian (progressive, eco-friendly and logical) ones. On top of that, he mentioned the point that the current civilisation itself is unsustainable from the ecological viewpoint too due to its dependency on oil, proposing the shift to renewable energies.

Then followed Yoko Kitazawa, commentator on international affairs and one of founders of PARC. She began her speech with the bankruptcy and the subsequent nationalisation of GM, symbol of U.S. capitalism, judging that the capitalism is in crisis and adding that now is the time to promote solidarity economy as states cannot afford to make up for what remains unmet with the decaying capitalism. It was during the 1st World Social Forum, which took place at Porto Alegre, Brazil in January 2001, when she first came to know about the solidarity economy as she dropped by different cooperatives and visited Landless Workers’ Movement (MST in Portuguese) which was preparing for the takeover of latifundios. This Brazilian city is the cradle for the Participatory Budgeting on which Kitazawa also gave a brief introduction. Finally, she referred to the concept of social economy in France which includes mutual benefit societies, non-profits and foundations too.

Japanese initiatives of solidarity economy were presented too. Makoto Yuasa, counselor of PARC and secretary general of the non-profit “Independent Life Support Centre Moyai” (Moyai means mutual help in Japanese) working to help the homeless for more than a decade, related what he has done with the solidarity economy. He began his activities in 1995, setting up a mutual benefit system for day workers (you pay 300 yen (US$3) per month to get up to 10,000 yen (US$100, 1.000 yen x 10 days) in case you are too ill to work), cosigning rental agreements (you pay 8.000 yen (US$80) for 2 years), paying some salary for those homeless people who clear up the apartments of those who disappeared, hosting a salon on Saturdays at Moyai’s office at Iidabashi, Tokyo to give chances to see people for those who have lost the chance to do so due to their new life at an apartment and selling fair-trade coffee by asking a former café master to grind. He admitted that he had no previous knowledge at all on what the solidarity economy is before being asked to give a speech for this symposium, so it was a good chance for him to recognize that most of his activities belong to this category and he promised to reflect this concept into his day-to-day chores.

Last but not least, Eiko Mukaeda, representative of Women and Community Bank, told about their own initiative which is being run as a “NPO-Bank,” (NPO- non profit organization) a term commonly used in Japan. She reminded us of Tanomoshikô, an once commonplace practice in Japan in which dozens of people gathered, paying a certain amount of money (such as US$10) and who won the lottery could bring away the whole amount of money. She explained that their bank is a modernised Tanomoshikô for women and grass-root people. Then she revealed her experiences, such as the lack of commercial banks willing to lend money for female entrepreneurs, bank’s order to fill in her husband’s name (not her own one) as loan customer and her surprise that nobody in Japan knew how to set up a credit union because the Ministry of Finance had given the message not to allow anybody to do so. She also said that judicially speaking those NPO banks in Japan belong to the same category as consumer loan firms, forbidding equity participants to be paid of interest, implying the need for appropriate law system for this financial system.

It would be an understatement to say that this symposium with more than 150 participants was a good start, despite some organisational troubles such as lack of seats for so many people and shortage of time for such a variety of topics, as the solidarity economy remains ignored in Japan. It is highly desirable that the 2^nd Asian Forum on Solidarity Economy, to be held in Tokyo in November, should trigger more surveys on solidarity economy by way of universities and other research institutes in order to provide more information in Japanese language, given the almost non-existence of people who can give the overview on solidarity economy.

Good morning! I sent an email and several SMS messages to request an appointment but there was no reply from your end. Perhaps you’re still in Malaysia. We’d like inform you that we have already got the registration papers from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for Community Transformation Inc (ComTrans) and acquired as well a checking account for the company.

Presently, the ComTrans internal auditor in cooperation with the Accounting Department of Armadillo Holdings Inc (AHI) are conducting an audit of three of our bigger projects such as the NFA rice dealership, Generic Pharmacy, Water Station, and Bayanihan Banking Window (BBW) Savings. They’re also giving us instructions on how to keep our financial recordkeeping in proper order. It’s truly gratifying to know that our members who are residents of our community are beginning to show interest and satisfaction in learning the most simple ways of becoming socially responsible in business. continue reading…