This past weekend from April 5 to 7 we were participating in the inauguration and dialogues of the first international work meeting of the Fórum Social Mundial de las Economías Transformadoras where more than 500 agents from the transforming economies, networks and movements met at local and international level.

The objective of this meeting was to recognize each agent, establish the shared challenges on which to discuss and discuss the process towards 2020, the year of celebration of the FSMET in Barcelona. It will be then when more than 10,000 people from five continents will meet in Barcelona to share experiences of multiple initiatives that are building a real alternative to the current economic and financial system worldwide.

Here you can see the opening ceremony in full:

The initiative is organized by the Red de Economía Solidaria de Cataluña (XES), Red Internacional de Economía Solidaria RIPESS and Red de Redes de la Economía Social y Solidaria (REAS), as well as having the support of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Barcelona City Council.

The objective of this previous meeting was to create a confluence space between people, entities, networks and movements that are already generating a transformation in their territories in various parts of the world. This meeting space was articulated through four axes, where key content issues, challenges, future strategies and the agenda of the 2019 and 2020 meetings were discussed in a self-managed way. On Saturday we were dialoguing between the different movements in the assembly interest, this being the main forum for discussion and decision of the Forum, which had (and will continue to count from now on) with virtual tools to facilitate the process of this meeting and the following.

From the organization they are very clear: "We are aware that the dynamics of power and privilege are also present in the transforming economies, for that reason we want to ensure the diversity of the subjects that participate in this process. Following the spirit of the World Social Forums , we want to transfer the objectives of the grassroots social movements to the public administrations (especially at the municipal and regional level), with the perspective of building public policies that encourage more humane ways of understanding the economy. universities and research centers in the field of transformative economies. With this objective, two transversal axes will be included: public policies and training and research, which will work in an articulated manner with the other axes."

The four main axes were the Agroecological Movement, Common, Feminist Economies and Solidarity Economy. After discussing the great challenges of each axis, we shared them and met in mixed groups, to launch ideas that would allow us to face the following 10 great challenges:

1.- Forum Governance
2.- Education
3.- Visibility and Story
4.- Global Intermovements
5.- Relationship between State and Corporations
6.- Governance and Self-Organization
7.- Construction of Own Knowledge
8.- New Technologies
9.- Life in the Center
10.- Own Strategy

For us it was a beautiful experience from which we came out with many ideas, great enthusiasm and eagerness to continue participating.
If you dare, you can contact them through these emails:

  • Economías Feministas (fem@transformadora.org)
  • Movimiento Agroecológico (agro@transformadora.org)
  • Comunes (commons@transformadora.org)
  • Economía Social y Solidaria (ess@transformadora.org)

From here we will continue working to reach 2020 with the duties done and informing you on upcoming occasions.
Because another world already exists ... find out!