UNRISD Podcasts

In this episode, Professor of Sociology Christina Clamp, shares invaluable insights and wisdom gleaned from over 40 years of experience in cooperative movements across Central America, South America, North America and Asia. With a wealth of first-hand knowledge, Professor Clamp provides a comprehensive exploration of cooperative movements, rooted in her concerns about educational inequalities in deeply divided societies. As the co-author of an Encyclopedia entry on Education and the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE), she adeptly guides us through diverse forms of cooperative-led primary and secondary education, with examples from Brazil, Korea, East Africa, Germany and beyond, highlighting SSE’s profound importance for addressing failures within public education and engendering sustainable development. Read the encyclopedia’s entries on the education sector.

In this episode, Professor Marthe Nyssens, a distinguished economist at the University of Louvain in Belgium, delves into her journey of interest in the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE). She sheds light on the pivotal role of social enterprises as a core activity in work integration and further elucidates why the SSE holds immense significance for individuals on the fringes of the labour market, offering insights into its impact and relevance for social and sustainable development. Read the encyclopedia’s entries on social enterprises and work integration.

In this episode, David Hiez, Professor of Law at the University of Luxembourg, gives an overview of why it is important to recognize the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) through legislation and laws. For Hiez, alternative economies such as SSE can tell a different story and become a new model for economic and productive activities as well as for the ways in which we build societies and relate to each other. Even though legislation is important to find a common understanding across practices and to consolidate SSE on a larger scale, a cautionary tale must also be told so that international instruments such as legislation and legal frameworks do not risk curtailing the potential for change of SSE initiatives and enterprises by imposing parameters and technicalities too strict or limiting.To read the encyclopaedia’s entry on legal frameworks and laws of SSE, click here.

In this episode, Eseosa Joy Sowemimo, lecturer in the department of Economics at the University of Benin, Nigeria, walks us through some of the African philosophical, cultural and economic concepts and systems that have historically incorporated communitarian visions and spoused an eco-social contract.

In this episode, UNRISD Senior Research Analyst Maggie Carter and UNRISD Senior Research Associate Manish Desai speak with Naseem Shaikh, Associate Director of Programs of Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP)—an organization dedicated to inclusive and sustainable development through the empowerment of women in low-income climate-threatened communities—and Priya Rakhunde, a farmer and community organizer who has been working with SSP for the past five years. They discuss a grassroots initiative led by SSP that simultaneously addresses food insecurity, gender inequality and climate degradation in four Indian states using a model of Women-Led Climate Resilient Farming (WCRF), locally known as the one acre model. Since its inception in 2014, the project has engaged over 300,000 women farmers in India and was awarded the United Nations Development Programme’s Equator Prize in 2017. In this discussion, they reflect on the process of designing, implementing and growing the programme, the hardships and triumphs that women farmers participating in the program experience, and lessons they’ve gained that can inform and inspire similar efforts to transition to more sustainable livelihoods and empower vulnerable and marginalized groups.

In this episode, Economic Policy Lead at the Green Economy Coalition Chris Hopkins speaks with Natasha Trotman, an award-winning British Afro-Caribbean international equalities designer, researcher and disability activist, and Dr. Monica Pinilla Roncancio, Assistant Professor at the University of the Andes and Deputy Director at the Centre of Sustainable Development for Latin America and the Caribbean (CODS), about the impacts and implications on inclusion for persons living with disabilities in climate change policy. They explore ways societies can be better at embedding people with disabilities and the natural world at the heart of new eco-social contracts that are intersectional and intentional. They argue that while persons living with disabilities currently benefit the least from climate change policies, methods and approaches, a human rights-based approach is possible by considering their unique needs, empowering marginalized communities, and improving the accessibility of information and action, from the local to the global.Sources and additional resourcesMayor of London approves Disability-focused ULEZ Campaign for Concessions (UK): https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/kbs-news-events/2022/12/london-mayor-approves-dr-kush-kanodias-campaign-for-concessions/#Mitigations for disabled people in ULEZ policy (UK): https://www.kent.ac.uk/kent-business-school/news/21451/alum-dr-kush-kanodia-success-in-campaigning-for-mitigations-for-disabled-people-in-ulez-policy Effects of climate change (UK): https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/climate-change/effects-of-climate-change Air pollution: https://www.who.int/news/item/22-09-2021-new-who-global-air-quality-guidelines-aim-to-save-millions-of-lives-from-air-pollutionCDP (PDF): chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://cdn.cdp.net/cdp-production/cms/reports/documents/000/006/915/original/CDP_UK_Cities_Report_EN_%282%29.pdf?1678720265 The impact of climate change on the rights of persons with disabilities - OHCHR and climate change: https://www.ohchr.org/en/climate-change/impact-climate-change-rights-persons-disabilities Kimberle W Crenshaw, Intersectionality: https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kim (Longer listen) Professor Patricia Hill Collins Intersectionality and Democratic Possibilities (Explores of the Matrix of Domination) recommended time code 34:00- 38:00: https://youtu.be/0qU10tQ_rHo?si=uuoi5wyykv6N7I3Y

In this episode, UNRISD Senior Research Coordinator Isabell Kempf talks to former President of Costa Rica, Mr Carlos Alvarado Quesada, about the experience of the Central American country in forming new eco-social contracts. Costa Rica has been a pioneer and world example in the race to halt the climate crisis. Alvarado explains how crucial to decarbonize the economy was diversifying it and putting people and common goods at the centre—instead of the extraction and exploitation of natural resources. This diversification, which has proven to be not only environmentally but also economically good for Costa Rica, is favored in healthy democracies, Alvarado argues, where social dialogue guides political processes and a sense of togetherness across the societal spectrum can prevent fragmentation and polarization. “It should not be taken literally, but Costa Rica’s example means that good change is possible.”

UNRISD Senior Research Coordinator Ilcheong Yi speaks in this episode to Sifa Chiyoge, Regional Director of the International Cooperative Alliance—Africa, about how cooperatives and the social and solidarity economy (SSE) align with a new eco social contract. They explore how cooperatives and the SSE inherently promote values like self-help, responsibility, democracy, equality, and solidarity, which are essential for creating just and equitable societies that respect the environment. Opportunities and challenges of these models highlight the need to address mistrust and misconceptions. Sifa also unpacks implications of the recent landmark resolution by the United Nations General Assembly recognising the potential of the SSE to accelerate achievement of the SDGs. SSE and cooperatives are vital to a more inclusive and community-based economic approach.