WE, participants to the Enterprising Meeting on the Solidarity Economy and Fair Trade in Latin America, gathered in Cochamba, Bolivia, from the 13th to the 15th of September 2005, coming from about twelve Latin-American and Caribbean countries, and after having an intense debate and exchange of views on the experiences among various networks and movements in Latin-America working on the field of the Solidarity Economy and Fair Trade, are hereby addressing the public opinion and governments of Latin-America on the following:
WE DECLARE
That following the decades of imposition of the neo-liberal economic model in our region by the US, international financial institutions and groups of the economic power in our countries, poverty and exclusion have increased and aggravated due to their adjustment policies, privatizations, the external debt renegotiation and the reduction in the intervention of the State, which affect particularly the wage-earning workers, as well as rural and urban small production; this went along with the increase and aggravation of development indicators of the region that were already alarming. This, instead of reducing the steps for the achievement of the so-called Millennium Goals, has led us far away from the access and enjoyment of Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, knowing that without these human rights we cannot acquire full citizenship;
That the basic cause of poverty does not strictly lie in poor countries, but in the unjust international relationships expressed through trade programs, finances and access to scientific and technological knowledge, thus, shaping new relations of dependency, which they intend to consolidate by means of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) that less developed countries are signing bilaterally with highly developed countries, as well as on a global level in the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO), under pretence of basing the prospects for growth and development of our countries on foreign trade and investment;
That in Latin America there are still political factors, which, together with economic factors, contribute to generate conditions for the widespread of poverty, by means of which the political elites not only have cheated the governed by turning corruption into a structural characteristic of our societies, but also delegitimized the political system in force in our region; which proves us once more that the impoverished countries of the region can take again the course of history and development if and only if our people are able to join the protest with a proposal for a new society and political model in which the economy should be at the service of people, as we have advocated it from the Solidarity Economy approach that we are building on local levels.
WE ARE PROPOSING
That a new development and wealth redistribution strategy, with the central aim of eradicating poverty and of promoting human development, must be geared toward the creation of right-based work and employment and the universal access to basic public services, with an accent on Food Self-sufficiency as a specific strategy for the promotion and preservation of national agriculture, which should profit from available resources and skills to impulse the diversification of crops aiming at reducing dependency on foreign food, and at an economically, socially and ecologically sustainable management style;
That such a strategy must be based on the recognition and increase in value of inputs, successes and lessons learned by solidarity-based economic and fair trade entrepreneurs at the local development level; analyzing in-depth and understanding the nature of poverty from the perspective of the population which experience it, i.e., not as “deficiency”, but as potential starting from their reality, their needs and priorities;
That such a strategy must be based on community participation, on development of local capacities and the articulation and support of community development promotion bodies with a view to improving the social conditions of the assisted groups and communities. In this sense, some of the priorities in terms of local development must be education, capacity building, development of strategies based on needs, demands and culture of the community, as well as community participation in all of the steps of a plan or policy aimed at the local development and the enjoyment of full human rights;
That the Solidarity Economy is a new economic vision of which the main aim is the satisfaction of social needs, seen as an approach for production, economic, social and political autonomy, incorporating such elements as: a) grassroots organization as the main link of the economic process; b) participation of workers on a self-management basis; c) the environmental sustainability as a permanent process; and d) associability for common production as an empowerment strategy for the men and women of our region in take up the challenge of being actors of their own development.
WE ARE COMMITTED :
To Boost the articulation of the Movement of Latin-American Solidarity Economy, Fair trade and Ethical Trade in order to increase the articulation of networks and experiences of fair trade and ethical consumption, for which, in our environment, we need to strengthen the process of Latin-American Coordination.
To Secure that, in the management of the Movement of Latin-American Solidarity Economy, Fair Trade and Ethical Consumption, producers can participate on a fair basis, among whom farmers, indigenous people, women, the disabled, prisoners and all those that suffer any type of exclusion are outstanding.
To Encourage the implementation of Participative Certification Systems for the Solidarity Economy of Fair Trade in each of our countries, with locally fix criteria with a tendency to unifying these criteria on a Latin-American level.
To Exchange mutually our products (without excluding the ancestral swapping practice), our technologies, experiences of successes and errors on basis on which we have built the history of the organizations and entrepreneurships we belong to. The slogan is “reinforcing South-South Trade”.
To Establish alliances with those, in our areas, who are bringing through their practice a new society, i.e., for example those who are administering money on a fair basis, those who are using environment-friendly and sustainable technologies, those who are promoting social tourism, those who are fighting for the preservation of the environment and community-based workers. We are convinced that the new culture is already emerging from the local, grassroots, inside-out level.
To Increase alliances with other social movements in order to influence the orientation of public policies toward the strengthening of the Solidarity Economy and Fair Trade in community, country and regional levels, based on a principle of equity, transparency and good governance.
To resist against FLO labeling in big plantations (industrial agriculture) and the labeling organizations for organic production in plantations.
To Reinforce the solidarity economy networks to keep on building the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS);
To Join our efforts and the efforts of our organizations to the commitment of all the organizations participating on the international agenda such us the 3rd Summit of the American Peoples (Mar del Plata, November 2005), the 3rd Meeting on the Globalisation of Solidarity (Dakar, November 2005) and the 5th World Social Forum (Caracas, January 2006).
WE ARE ASKING :
The heads of States and Governments of Latin-America and the Caribbean:
1)To PREVENT our efforts – as solidarity entrepreneurs, cooperatives, associations, as well as micro, small and medium enterprises – to earn a decent life to our families and people from smashing against an economic, social, and basically political system, which does not take into account the complementarity trend, but rather an unfair savage competition.
2)To SOLVE the problem of the disgraceful social and economic injustice to our people. We are convinced that every citizen must contribute up to the level of their capacities and of what they have, as well as they must be rewarded according to their need. For sure, there is an injustice between powerful countries and dependant ones like ours. But, and almost without any exception, this injustice is even more existing within the various sectors in the countries that you are leading. The problem begins at the household level, and you have our mandate to solve it.
3)To DARE suggest and impulse in parliamentary bodies some deep tax reforms, according to which those people and organizations that earn more should contribute more through direct and efficient taxes.
4)To FULFILL your obligation to defend the sovereignty of our nations. Alleging that “we cannot do so because we are conditioned” does not work. Sovereignty is not to be obtained by begging, but it must be conquered and exercised. Governance and public security are incompatible without the implementation of cautious and long term policies – not emergency and assistance policies – that are capable of eradicating as quickly as possible the shame of unemployment, poverty and exclusion.
5)NOT TO SIGN the FTA and whatever investment agreements upon the back of their populations, by accepting proposals, which are in fact impositions of the USA, the EU or other blocs, putting at risk in this way our food and energy sovereignty. Any decision which compromises the future of our generations must be submitted to public approval through a national referendum.
6)TO IMPULSE an integration, not only commercial integration, but also cultural, social and political integration of our Latin-American and Caribbean nations, which should begin by the intensification of sub-regional integration processes (CAN, MERCOSUR, MMCA and CARICOM), in the same time as an acceleration of the CAN-MERCOSUR convergence and the implementation of the project of the Community of South American Nations and the Bolivian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA).
