Description

A new way of thinking is emerging for developing strategic pathways for local to planetary economic and ecological viability. This way of thinking centres around the ideas of “peer to peer production”, “the commons”, and “cosmo-localism”. This course will give participants emerging strategies to address critical development challenges using new cosmo-local and commons-based production strategies and thinking. Cosmo-local development describes the process of bringing together our globally distributed knowledge and design commons with the high-to-low tech capacity for localized production and self-organization. It augurs in an era in which the legacy of human creativity is at the disposal and service of those with the most needs, and in which our systems of production can be sustained within planetary ecological boundaries.

Over 15 cases will be presented on a variety of topics and themes, including:

• Examples in agriculture, for examples Farm Hack, Le A’terlier Paysans and FarmBot
• Examples in manufacturing, including Open Motors, AbilityMade and OpenROV
• Examples in medicine and health, including Fold-it and the Open Insulin Project
• Examples in housing construction, including Hexayurt and Wikihouse
• Examples in the circular economy, including Precious Plastic
• Examples in urban development, including Fabcity and Ghent city as commons
• Examples in water management, including Hack the Water Crisis (Stop Reset Go)
• Examples in crypto-programming, including Holochain
• Examples in disaster response, including Field Ready

The course is run in the format of ‘action learning’. This means that participants will form into groups (5-8 people) based on topics that are meaningful to them, and will engage in a problem solving (anticipatory innovation) process through-out the course. Participant will be introduced to the key ideas and guided through the problem solving in a step by step format, so that the ideas are applied in the context of real development challenges. The course is a unique offering combining anticipatory innovation and systemic futures design thinking that will give participants renewed leverage in generating ideas for positive social change.

Objectives of Course:

• Learn from 15+ examples and cases
• Learn concepts in

1. Peer Production
2. The Commons
3. Cosmo-local production

• Understand cosmo-localism as both

1. A seed form that can be applied and scaled from social enterprise
2. A political economic vision which provides new policy pathways

• Develop networks and connections with others that carry forward momentum
• Develop process skills in applying these models in the context of specific development and organisational challenges

Expected Outcomes of Course:

• A new set of concepts and understanding for development
• An understanding of how these strategies are applied
• A set of examples and cases that clarify how they function
• Ideas developed in the workshop that can be carried forward into the world
• Inclusion in an extended network of people interested in these new development strategies
• A cosmo-local production design canvas that will provide a template for applying the ideas elsewhere (this will be a simple to use canvas that can be printed in an A2 or bigger paper that will be linked to the course content)

The course is being run by Dr. Jose Ramos (Action Foresight), in conjunction with Prof. Shishir Kumar Jha and Raji Ajwani (Indian Institute of Technology – Mumbai) and Michel Bauwens (P2P Foundation).

About the presenter

José Maria Ramos is interim research coordinator for the P2P Foundation, director of the boutique foresight consultancy Action Foresight, is Senior Consulting Editor for the Journal of Futures Studies, and is Senior Adjunct Professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He has taught and lectured on futures studies, public policy and social innovation at the National University of Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy), Swinburne University of Technology (Australia), Leuphana University (Germany), the University of the Sunshine Coast (Australia) and Victoria University (Australia). He has over 50 publications in journals, magazines and books spanning economic, cultural and political change, futures studies, public policy and social innovation. He has also co-founded numerous civil society organizations, a social forum, a maker lab, an advocacy group for commons governance, and a peer to peer leadership development group for mutant futurists. He holds a B.A. in Comparative Literature, a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight, and a Ph.D. in critical globalisation studies. He has a passion for the coupling of foresight and action, which has included both theoretical work through published articles, consulting work for federal, state and municipal governments, as well as citizen experiments in methodological innovation. He is originally from California of Mexican ancestry. Born in Oakland, he grew up in a very multi-cultural suburb of Los Angeles. After living in Japan and Taiwan, where he studied Japanese and Mandarin, he moved to Melbourne Australia to be with his wife, De Chantal. They have two children, son Ethan and daughter Rafaela. His other great passion is in considering who we are as planetary beings, which includes his ethnographic study of alternative globalizations, writings on planetary stigmergy, and research on cosmo-localization. This line of work connects him to the truth that we are all brothers and sisters inter-dependent with our planet and each other for our survival and wellbeing – our shared commons.

Workshop Schedule

Module Activities DAY 1

Day one (morning)

Deep dive into p2p / cosmo-local ideas and examples.

15+ case studies and examples from around the world

Content: Farm Hack, Le A’terlier Paysans and FarmBot, Open Motors, AbilityMade and OpenROV, Fold-it and the Open Insulin Project, Hexayurt and Wikihouse, Precious Plastic, Fabcity and Ghent city as commons, Hack the Water Crisis (Stop Reset Go), Holochain, Field Ready

LUNCH

Day one (afternoon)

Presentation of principles of cosmo-local production and commons based development.

Content

• The theory of the p2p economy.
• Foundational concepts.
• The theory of commons governance.
• Foundational concepts.

Lectures followed by discussion and Q&A.

Open discussion on participant reflections.

Dive into some of issues and challenges people are grappling with. Break into groups and begin to explore the nature of the problems and issues that they are facing.

DAY 2

Day two (morning) Re-articulation of the key ideas and then groups jump into practical and applied group work.

Content: The anticipatory experimentation method (AEM) steps 1-2

Identify the “used future” and develop a preferred future

LUNCH

Day two (afternoon)

Developing the proposal, articulating ideas to solve the local issues and problems, and developing ideas for real world experimentation.

Content:

• The anticipatory experimentation method (AEM)

steps 3-4

• Ideating solutions and real-world experiments

Presentations and discussing next steps as a network

What is cosmo-localism?

Cosmo-localization describes the process of bringing together our globally distributed knowledge and design commons with the high-to-low tech capacity for localized production. It augurs an era in which the legacy of human creativity is at the disposal and service of those in need within ecological planetary boundaries. It is based on the ethical premise, drawing from cosmopolitanism, that people and communities should be universally empowered with the heritage of human ingenuity that allow them to more effectively create livelihoods and solve problems in their local environments, and that, reciprocally, local production and innovation should support the wellbeing of our planetary commons.

“Cosmo-localization is a new paradigm for the production and distribution of value that combines the universal sharing of knowledge (cosmo), but the ‘subsidiarity’ of production as close as possible to the place of need (‘local’), essentially through distributed local manufacturing and voluntary mutualization. The general idea is not to impede technological progress though intellectual property, in an era of climate change where we cannot afford the 20-year lag in innovation due to patents; and to radically diminish the physical cost of transport through local production. Cosmo-localization is based on the belief that the mutualization of provisioning systems can radically diminish the human footprint on natural resources, which need to be preserved for future generations and all beings of the planet.” Michel Bauwens

“what is light (knowledge, design) becomes global, while what is heavy (machinery) is local, and ideally shared. Design global, manufacture local (DGML) demonstrates how a technology project can leverage the digital commons to engage the global community in its development, celebrating new forms of cooperation. Unlike large-scale industrial manufacturing, the DGML model emphasizes application that is small-scale, decentralized, resilient, and locally controlled.” –Vasilis Kostakis and Andreas Roos, Harvard Business Review

More information

Links to cosmo-localization:

• Peer Production and the Commons

• From redistributive urban commons to cosmo-local production commons

• Cosmo-Localization And Leadership For The Future

• Cosmo-localism and the Anthropocene

The post Futures of Production Through Cosmo-Local and Commons-Based Design appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Through the Goa mining PIL (public interest litigation) in the Supreme Court of India (WP 435/2012), we have developed a tight proposition for minerals, extensible to natural resources and the commons.

We take the perspective of owners of sub-soil assets. Quite simply, we are asking for the following principles to be implemented (in Goa, India and globally):
1. We, the people of [Goa], own the minerals in common. The government is merely a trustee of natural resources for the people and especially future generations (Public Trust Doctrine).

2. As we have inherited the minerals, we are simply custodians and must pass them on to future generations (Inter-generational Equity Principle).

Consider the example of inherited family gold. If the family decide to keep the gold as it is, they ensure the gold remains to be passed onto future generations. However they must safeguard it against theft, which is both a headache and a cost, while the gold produces no income. Alternatively, if they decide to sell the gold and invest the proceeds in say land for example, they and their future generations can benefit from the income of the land as long as it is well maintained. The crucial point is that if the gold were to be lost or the investments mismanaged, the loss of capital would be permanent for all future generations.

3. Therefore, if we mine and we sell our mineral resources, we must ensure zero loss, ie. capture of the full economic rent (sale price minus cost of extraction, cost including reasonable profit for miner). Any loss is a loss to all of us and our future generations.

4. All the money received from our minerals must be saved in a Permanent Fund, as already implemented all over the globe (Botswana, Norway, etc). Like the minerals, the Permanent Fund will also be part of the commons. The Supreme Court of India has ordered the creation of a Permanent Fund for Goan iron ore and already $13 million is deposited. This is a global judicial precedent.

5. Any real income (after inflation) from the Permanent Fund must only be distributed equally to all as a right of ownership, a commons dividend or a Citizen’s Dividend.

These principles are sufficient in themselves to receive support from most people. Read on!

Grounds for the principles

These principles are first and foremost constitutional in India (& likely most countries). They flow from the Public Trust Doctrine & the Inter-generational Equity Principle. These are also the inheritance customs for a large part of the population. It has strong parallels with Pope Francis’ environmental encyclical. It is aligned with environmental and mineral resource economics. From an economic theory perspective, all we are asking for is respect for property rights. This is unarguable in all flavours of mainstream economics (although indigenous people & others will argue that nature cannot be owned). It is palpably fair, ethical, right, just and moral.

We advocate that this be the default framework for minerals (and the commons generally). Any variations from these principles (“social or welfare purposes”) would require strong justification.

The first problem: Massive losses

Title to sub-soil minerals are usually with governments. In India, minerals are largely owned by the sub-national governments. Mining is effectively the sale of the family gold. The goal must be to receive the full value, the economic rent. There are relatively few studies that attempt to calculate whether mineral owners have suffered losses.In our first paper, Implementing Intergenerational Equity in Goa, we used World Bank data series for iron ore mining to estimate the economic rent per ton. We then multiplied this by the tons exported (from the local industry body) to estimate the total economic rent of the iron ore exported. Then compared this with the actual amounts received by the state government through royalty. Over a 5 year period (2004–2009), the state of Goa lost more than 99% of the value of its minerals.

In our second paper, Catastrophic Failure of Public Trust in Mining: Case Study of Goa, we repeat the analysis. However, we estimate the economic rent from the annual reports of Sesa Goa, our largest miner, accounting for 1/3rd of the mining. While the after tax cost of capital should have been 10–12%, we set it at 20%. Of the balance value, the state of Goa lost over 95% of the economic rent. This was over a 8 year period (2004–2012). This paper also shows similar results in iron ore, coal, oil and gas across India.

Worldwide, IMF data (para 64) shows significant losses of the economic rent are common — minimum of 15% for oil and 35% for minerals. Energy is 1/7th the world economy. Some $7 tn of oil & minerals are extracted each year. World Bank mineral depletion estimates are $27 tn between 1970 and 2013.

Creates extensive problems

Effectively, we are selling our mineral inheritance, our family gold, very cheap. This creates corruption, crony capitalism & poor governance. The obviously unfair terms of the mining lease creates incentives for the miner to extract rapidly and exit. This in turn creates the human rights violations and environmental damage. Eventually this leads to conflict and civil war.

As we are selling the minerals cheap, it also eventually drives over consumption, leading to global warming & unsustainability.

Most minerals are owned by the state as a trustee on behalf of the people and especially future generations. This loss is therefore borne equally by everyone, effectively a per-head tax. And a few miners and their cronies are getting ultra rich. This is looting economics, not trickle down. It is driving inequality. It is a clear violation of Article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and probably others we are not aware of. It violates justice, equality, common good, and is simply unethical and unfair.

In most countries, zero loss is not an explicit objective of the mining ministry. This must change.

The second problem: Government accounting and statistics

Mining is clearly the sale of the family gold. A related issue is that government accounting and statistics treat money from mining as revenue, not the sale of inherited assets. Other than being obviously wrong, it is contrary to private sector accounting. Green accounting essentially acknowledges this issue.

Terming mineral receipts “windfall revenue” disguises its nature as a sale of an inherited asset. More revenues are good, & we don’t examine windfalls closely. Inherited wealth is frittered away in consumption.

Due to the commodity cycle, “windfall revenue” treatment creates huge volatility in government budgets. “Revenue” booms. Expenditure rises to keep pace. Prices crash. “Revenues” crash. Sell more inherited wealth at the price bottom? Prices drop further. Cut the public sector? Impose a new tax? Hard choices to make.

Alaska, which only deposits 25% of its oil money, has suffered from the price volatility impact, as you can see from their ongoing budget discussions. So too Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Russia. Some countries like Norway & Botswana have a fiscal policy that effectively considers minerals to be capital — they target the non-mineral revenue deficit, and deposit 100% of mineral receipts into their Permanent Fund, effectively treating mineral receipts as capital receipts.

This incorrect accounting also creates pressure to extract — more revenues are good. Money from minerals is easy money, which in turn drives poor governance and eventually autocracies.

The distortion is significant. In Goa, we found over the same 8 year period (2004–2012), the official deficit was 2.46% of GDP. If we treat mineral receipts as capital receipts, then the “non-mineral” deficit rises to 3.73%. However, if we treat the losses as expenses, then the deficit increases to an incredible 41.47%. This is clearly unsustainable.

Note that mineral receipts accounted for only 8% of Goa government revenues. This is much higher in many resource rich nations, approaching 90% in some cases. These nations are simply consuming their inheritance.

We are asking for is for government accounting, statistics and fiscal policy to treat money from mining as capital receipts from inherited assets, not “windfall” revenue as is the current practice. This simple change will be quite profound. “We manage what we measure.” The immediate impact of this change would be to strip government revenues of all mining money. And minerals become an asset with a different set of questions: Should we extract? When should we extract? How much should we extract? What minimum price do we want for our asset? What is its value? Are we incurring a loss? How are we investing the money we receive for our children?

We have written a detailed paper to the IMF, UN, IPSASB, WB, INTOSAI, etc to correct this anomaly. Following some questions and comments, we have sent a response to FAQs. As the relevant government accounting standard is under review, we have started an online petition, A simple accounting change that will save countless lives.

Scale of the injustice

The loss of economic rent and the consumption spending by the government are effectively an enormous loss to the commons, borne by our children & future generations. The absolute losses in Goa were enormous. US$ 9 billion in eight years. Twice state government revenues from all sources. 28% of cumulative GDP. Each family lost more than the average private assets of households in Goa. It is simply immoral.

As a counterfactual, had our principles been applied for that same 8 year period in Goa, today every citizen in Goa would receive a commons dividend of Rs. 1,000 a month. This would have made a significant dent on poverty (the national poverty line is at Rs. 932 per month).

If significant losses are likely, perhaps it would be better to develop fairer institutions before extracting.

Fair mining

Our principles are clearly fair and universal. The citizen’s dividend is a critical aspect of our design, as it is intended to link the citizen to their minerals. This will create monitoring so that these losses do not recur.

It will also have tremendous other impacts. After the vote, it will be the first true manifestation of equality. As a right of ownership, the citizen’s dividend also is different from a government subsidy. As it grows over time, and keeps pace with inflation as well, the citizen’s dividend is also a Universal Basic Income (UBI), and comes with all its benefits.

Zero loss mining makes the mining lease fair. This reduces the incentives for the haste, and the damage that comes after.

Since the state doesn’t benefit from the mining “revenue”, either at the point of extraction or the distribution of real income, there is little incentive to extract mindlessly.

The whole system is fair, likely reducing many mineral conflicts (though Scotland is more likely to separate from the UK, etc).

Safeguarding great wealth

If we extract minerals, then there is a large amount of wealth “created”. This will attract thieves of all kinds. This in turn drives corruption, poor governance and over-consumption. And environmental damage, human rights violations ending up with conflict. And the huge money coming out makes it difficult to stop as crony capitalists buy the political system with patronage.

What we are essentially doing is allowing mining while sequestering the great wealth away from everyone — miner, government/politician & the people, and only allowing the real income to trickle out.

And everyone is a stakeholder. Transparency, state of the art controls, and whistle-blower rewards and protections are necessary to make it difficult to steal from the pot.

What about Ecological Economics?

We found the Intergenerational Equity principle (“what will future generations do”) to be the core principle — first safeguard the inheritance — if that is done, consume the crop. From this we derive sustainability (sustain what for whom? planetary capability for future generations). From this we derive, through weak sustainability, the precautionary principle for critical assets, and the polluter pays principle for damage to non-critical assets.

Mining is essentially the conversion of natural resources into other non-wasting assets. The first step is listing the assets in the inheritance. These are at least three (a) the damage to the environment/society/agriculture, (b) the work / income associated with the minerals (which depletes along with the minerals), and (c) the mineral value or economic rent. In Goa, we found (a) extensive damage to environment/society, (b) the minerals could be exhausted in nine years (Shah Commission), and © we were receiving less than 5% of the mineral value, and even that was being consumed, a total loss to most of Goa, and our children. For each asset, we need to create a mechanism to ensure that the total value of our commons remains “non-wasting”.

For Goa mining, we propose a tiered structure. The precautionary principle (“don’t risk a catastrophe”) we propose to implement through a cap mechanism, set at the lowest volume where any irreversible damage was observed (12 mt saw the benthic life of our rivers almost extinct) or any legal limit is breached anywhere. The limit would drop sharply on a breach like a stock market trigger. If everything was OK over a long period [5 years], then the limit would increase in increments of [5 mtpa]. Separately, the polluter pays principle would apply to all identifiable damage. And the District Mineral Foundation would be expected to compensate the rest of the damage that cannot be identified to anyone. For the mineral exhaustion, we propose an independent cap set at 1/200th of the reserves, ensuring extraction over 7 generations.

The government needs money!

One common concern is money should go to the government budget. There are two sorts of reasons: (a) The good things government can do (education, health, infrastructure, renewables, etc.) (b) The future will be richer, so we need not save as much.

Our design is intended to make Citizen’s stakeholders, creating an endowment effect. Only then would they monitor mining. Diversion to the budget provides easy money to the politicians, which would worsen governance. If we divert even 1% to the budget, soon enough there will be a budget crisis and this will eventually become 99% or 100%. The link with the citizen gets broken. Raiding the Permanent Fund and then the remaining minerals will be next. The only standard that can be defended is an absolute standard.

From a governance standpoint, if the investments are so productive, then surely capital markets would finance it or taxes could be raised. If this is not possible, it is more likely an issue of the credibility of the governance to deliver the anticipated benefits.

The other idea that the future will be richer depends on continuing growth. Numerous clouds surround us. It would be a bold prediction that the future will always be richer than us, for even the next 1,000 years.

These two blog posts explain further: Why 100% to Permanent Fund and Why income distribution only as Citizen’s Dividend.

What do we do in practice?

We have submitted a detailed note on how our approach needs to be incorporated within India’s National Mineral Policy. Our Goenchi Mati Manifesto suggests a practical framework for implementation in Goa. The 3rd EPW paper discusses how we are approaching this issue at the Supreme Court. More work is needed and inputs would be appreciated.

Can it be implemented?

1. Economics: Keep in mind that our principles would be supported by most flavors of economics. All we are asking for is respect the property rights of commoners.

2. Politics: Politically, minerals have always been a difficult issue as very few people benefit or are harmed directly. The vast majority want “development” and are realistic enough to see that our cars and phones need minerals. However, with this argument and the large losses, we can address the development seekers without stopping mining. Finally, the urban population can get concerned about mining as an corruption/governance issue and a human rights / fairness issue.

As a separate matter, a challenger party can disrupt patronage politics with a stunning vision of a new social compact, one that explicitly treats everyone as equal, while striking a blow at crony capitalism. The first mover advantage is large, and is still available. Sort of “everyone gets a dividend while the corrupt cronies weep & our children cheer”.

Keep in mind that over 50 Permanent Funds from natural resources exist globally, so there is a feasible political path.

3. Moral/Religion: Our principles achieve both intra-generational equality (the Citizen’s Dividend) and inter-generational equity (the Permanent Fund). This is effectively the golden rule (treat everyone as you would want to be treated) which is the moral bedrock of all large religions. The Archbishop of Goa showed his strong support for our ideas, linked to the environmental encyclical of Pope Francis. Is an inter-faith resolution feasible similar to the one before the Paris Convention?

The Future We Need

At a deeper level, the world has an ecological problem and an economic problem. Neither can be solved in the current political system. Change here is difficult due to the money flowing in (Citizen’s United), and eventually, the biggest source is crony capitalism. And the biggest sector for crony capitalism, and actually the biggest sector of the economy is energy & minerals. Looking even deeper, over the last 500 years, we’ve had individualism dominating community, and a shift to consuming the planet instead of acting as custodians for our children.

Our 5 principles essentially reverses this dynamic. We reframe towards community thinking through the commons. We reframe our relationship as stewards of the planet, not consumers. Zero loss mining + the Citizens Dividend controls crony capitalism. We control inequality and extreme poverty on the economic side. And the environment benefits first from the re-framing as custodians, and then from getting the appropriate price with proper environmental safeguards. Higher prices would over time compress consumption as well.

Starting with minerals is probably the easiest point. People can agree on mineral values (unlike a forest). It is usually obvious that the mineral is being depleted, purely capital (sand and water are exceptions). We can successfully make the argument in minerals even to global warming deniers or those wanting more development. If they agree, they implicitly accept the community and custodianship reframing. The reframing opens up a path to eventual acceptability of the need for true sustainability.

Our framework naturally leads to many other ideas as well. Carbon tax + dividend. Pollution tax + dividend. Land tax + dividend. All these are premised on the idea of commons, and the tax is a recovery of the value destroyed (by carbon / pollution) or created (land, value created by society). The dividend is key — since a large majority will be net beneficiaries under any such scheme, they will support tax increases, eventually squeezing consumption. The land tax also has the impact of lowering land values and making it expensive to keep land permanently fallow. India’s land taxes are a fraction of the western norm of 1–2% of the capital value of property and a hidden source of inequality, like mining.

Clearly, our principles must be part of the core of any sustainable economy. It quite simply is The Future We Need.

What are we doing?

1. The Goenchi Mati Movement (GMM) in Goa is advocating for the full implementation of our 5 principles. Our manifesto (goenchimati.org/manifesto) lays out how these principles can be implemented in Goa. In general, we found that people of all strata understand our principles very easily and naturally. Those who read the manifesto also found it clear and logical. Amongst our supporters in Goa, we have a miner, a tribal mining affected leader and a mining dependent trade union leader. You can view a list of prominent GMM supporters. In our recent state elections, 4 political parties endorsed our manifesto, including Aam Aadmi Party (a good governance / anti corruption party that swept the Delhi elections). Consider supporting us. However, we found it difficult to get the idea to spread virally and were unable to significantly impact the elections. More work is needed here.

We did have some success. The Government of India has discussed our idea in the recent Economic Survey (pg 297), and CGD reported on it. The Shadow Chancellor of the UK is also interested in our ideas.

2. Goa Foundation (goafoundation.org), an environmental non-profit that is involved, among other things, in litigation against mining in Goa, and supports the Goenchi Mati Movement. The Supreme Court order on the Permanent Fund is a result of Goa Foundation’s work. This research work is under Goa Foundation. GF has also been advocating how these principles should be implemented with the Goa and the Central governments.

3. In partnership with an alliance (mm&P) and a non-profit (Common Cause), we have launched a campaign to change India’s National Mineral Policy. Goa Foundation sent in a detailed representation that sets out how these principles should be implemented, and provides the rationale for a strong control system and radical transparency. The first draft does contain some language on Intergenerational Equity. However, the road is long and much can change.

4. We are conscious that these principles are universal, and we would like to implement them globally. Our global initiative is The Future We Need (TFWN). We are looking for global partners.

5. The second initiative of The Future We Need (after GMM) is to advocate a change in government accounting, statistics & disclosure from revenue to capital. The relevant international accounting standard, IPSAS — 13 Leases, is under review, but unfortunately doesn’t include mineral leases. We have started an online petition, A simple accounting change that will save countless lives. Consider supporting us.

Learn more

1. A youtube video at a conference on basic income. This doesn’t cover the environmental aspects.

1. The three published papers in EPW related to this work are Implementing Intergenerational Equity in Goa, Catastrophic Failure of Public Trust in Mining: Case Study of Goa and Intergenerational Equity Case Study

2. We recommend reading these two blog posts that answer the most frequent questions, Why 100% to Permanent Fund and Why income distribution only as Citizen’s Dividend.

4. Here’s our detailed note on mineral accounting by governments, and the response to FAQs.

4. How a loss from the commons is equivalent to a negative basic income or a per-head tax.

6. A recent article on the deeper causes of the Alaska budget crisis and how implementing our principles would avoid it.

Goa specific in more detail

1. A 9 part series of articles on what happened in Goa with a lot of detail, so that the information is in the public domain. Ore Chor! 144 is on how bad the lease renewals were. Links to the earlier ones are in the article.

2. A Youtube playlist going into some detail (80 minutes)

3. Somewhat of a history of what happened: http://goenchimati.org/intergenerational-equity-documents/. It has a particular lens, but covers quite a wide swathe of the work with links to go into much more detail.

4. Most of our collateral can be accessed on our website — academic papers, explainer videos, articles, etc.

Rahul Basu is the Research Director of Goa Foundation, an environmental NGO in India. The Future We Need is a global movement asking for natural resources to be viewed as a shared inheritance we hold as custodians for future generations. This work is based on the practical work of the Goa Foundation.

Whose Mine Is It Anyway is a campaign to make government finances and national income statistics treat mining as the sale of minerals. Read Mitigating the Resource Curse by improving Government Accounting and Government Accounting and the Resource Curse — Response to FAQs.

The Goenchi Mati Movement is advocating these principles for all mining in Goa, India. A joint campaign is asking for these principles to be part of India’s National Mineral Policy.

The post What is the future we need? appeared first on P2P Foundation.

photo credit: Trebor Scholz

Last month, after a year of preliminary conversations, the team leading work on the Platform Co-op Development Kit launched a collaboration with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) – the largest organization of informal workers anywhere in the world. SEWA, a union of 1.5 million members and a federation of cooperatives with over 300,000 members offering services such as child care and insurance, is headquartered in Ahmedabad but operates all across India, organizing poor women workers in the informal economy.

By partnering with our team as one of five pilot groups for the Kit, SEWA Federation will be able to co-design two projects. One will provide a democratic governance tool for the members of the co-ops that work under the SEWA umbrella but are geographically too far apart to meaningfully participate in its activities. The second project is a platform co-op for beauty services.

About Sewa

SEWA union launched in 1972 with a small group of women who wanted to secure micro-loans to start their own businesses. Having been told they were “not bankable” by the nationalized state banks at the time, founder Ela Bhatt helped them learn to launch their own bank. By pooling their resources, and with contributions as little as ten rupees from many women in the community, SEWA established its own cooperative bank in 1974 with 100,000 Indian Rupees, or slightly more than 1377 U.S. dollars. The women began to recognize their own power. Ela Bhatt’s first book was consequently titled “We Are Poor but So Many.” Next, the women turned their attention to reducing medical expenses, as they were proving to be an obstacle to the women paying back their loans. Within a few years SEWA created a healthcare cooperative, which now provides affordable medicine. More and more enterprises continued to develop under the cooperative model. And while SEWA focused first on organizing urban women, they eventually also expanded into rural areas.

Today, Sewa Federation is comprised of 106 cooperatives, working in industries such as milk production and financial services, prescription medications and garment manufacturing. Importantly, Sewa Federation is a multi-denominational enterprise with women from various religious backgrounds: Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Jainist, and Buddhist. Sewa offers a range of services: from education to catering, childcare, and other services. The key to SEWA’s success has been its integrative approach, centering an entire ecosystem of co-ops around the needs of poor self-employed women in the informal economy. Learn more about SEWA’s unique approach through this report from the International Labor Organization (ILO).

We are grateful to the ILO for introducing us to SEWA.

Building A Beauty Services Platform Co-op

The collaboration with SEWA Federation is planned for the next two years. The platform co-op for beauty service will allow users to request a worker-owner to come to their home to do makeup, threading, waxing, and haircuts or massages. The platform will meet a growing demand for home services in the beauty sector in Ahmedabad and other Indian cities, as evidenced by the growth of extractive platforms such as UrbanClap and VLCC.

During his trip to SEWA to discuss this platform, Trebor Scholz met with both Namya Mahajan, managing director of SEWA Federation, and an initial cohort of 25 women who are currently being trained to work through the platform co-op. Learn more about the Federation’s commitment to the project in this short video with Namya:

When Trebor joined the workers in their first training session, they were learning how to greet a client at their home by stating their name, which was new to them as it is not common for low-caste women to state their names. Interestingly, many of the women already own or have access to smartphones. They are also familiar with Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. But scheduling their work through a platform co-op will be new to them.

In discussing what they would like to see in the platform co-op, the young women emphasized their concerns about safety when traveling to clients and working in their private homes. In the workshop, the women asked for a panic button for workers to be integrated into the app. The button would allow them to quickly alert two friends and the police in case of an emergency. One of the more experienced beauty workers strongly felt that there should be no individual worker profiles available to customers. In order to protect the women from assault and harassment, users of the app should have no choice over which co-op member who is providing a particular service. They also expressed interest in a GPS feature that would allow a co-op manager to know their whereabouts.

By December of this year, once a prototype has been completed, work through the platform can begin with 25 women workers. A second group of 50 women will then begin the training, to join the platform in March 2019. The goal is to upscale the platform to anywhere between 500 and 1000, the average size of a SEWA cooperative. In contrast to the 30% of the revenue extracted from workers on traditional platforms, SEWA Federation only plans to take 15% to cover administrative and educational expenses. If successful, the platform co-op could even expand to cities like Patna, Chandigarh, and Delhi. Finally, because the women will be working in the clients’ homes, the platform could eventually offer other household services like cleaning, child care, painting, plumbing, electrical work, pet care, carpentry, cooking, and waste collection.

Additional support is coming from Godrej Consumer Products Limited. Godrej is contributing the initial capital investment for the business. It also supports the training for the beauty workers through curriculum.

Strengthening Distributed Co-op Governance

The second platform for SEWA will focus on organizing the cooperatives of the SEWA Federation spread out across the state of Gujarat, and additional cooperatives all across India. Distributed democratic governance is a significant challenge for many cooperatives, and given the number and diversity of co-ops within SEWA, and their geographic distribution across the entire state, SEWA needs a new online tool to help them organize, educate, and make decisions. Just think of the Adivasi women in the remote parts of the mountains in Southern Gujarat. While new tools like Enspiral’s Loomio saw amazing uptake, distributed democratic governance remains a big challenge for co-ops worldwide. But if trained to use technology and given smartphones, the women led by village elders could co-govern the co-op from afar. First conversations led us to imagine such functionality, also useable on flip phones, as follows:

• A decision-making tool in which co-ops can vote and decide on strategic matters and resource distribution within the federation

• A social-networking tool in which cooperators can connect and message each other

• An educational resources tool in which SEWA can share new videos, manuals, instructions, and best practices directly with co-ops, and co-ops too can share business information directly with the SEWA umbrella organization

These services, still pending the co-design process, would allow for improved business practices and stronger democratic governance for SEWA Federation across Gujarat. They could collect data from co-op members that could then be shared with policymakers, for instance. Thus, the tool could impact state policies so that local and national governmental policy better serves the interest of co-ops. The platform will also need to respond to the many different languages spoken by cooperators in the region (e.g. Gujarati, Hindi, English, etc.) and incorporate audio tools. In short, a new governance tool would dramatically improve the functionality and effectiveness of SEWA Federation.

More applied research in the area of distributed governance among precarious in the informal economy is much needed.

Sewa Federation is also interested in a cooperative online marketplace that would allow some of their co-ops to sell artisanal products, snacks, garments, generic medicine and Ayurvedic medicinal products.

In November, the Inclusive Design Research Center will start leading co-design sessions with women workers in Ahmedabad and then develop platform prototypes based on their specific needs. Trebor discussed with SEWA’s own video production cooperative the production of a series of testimonials documenting this process, interviewing workers in co-design sessions and creating videos in which women discuss their experiences with the platform co-op. Through the documentation of workers’ experiences, the videos will capture the potential of this model.

Learning from Sewa

The key to SEWA’s success has been their holistic, federated approach. SEWA places poor women workers in the informal economy at the center of an ecosystem of co-ops that seeks to address their various social needs, not just economic necessities.

In the U.S., many long-standing, very large and wealthy cooperatives have lost the focus on support for those who need it most. While large consumer, purchasing, and agricultural cooperatives like REI COOP, Ace Hardware, and Organic Valley prove economically successful and sustainable, they fail to significantly address broader social problems. They do not tackle complicated social and economic needs, like full-time workers lacking healthcare, rising income inequality, soaring childcare costs, etc. Workers in such co-ops sometimes do not exercise or feel inspired to participate in democratic governance.

By understanding and learning from SEWA, workers and cooperatives elsewhere can envision new ways of organizing their workplace, and re-orienting their cooperative identities. For example, larger U.S. cooperatives could commit to the 7 cooperative principles (especially the one focused on co-ops helping other co-ops), by investing in new startup projects (including platform co-ops) and creating spaces for incubation. They could also make a real commitment to open source tools, so that new platform co-ops do not have to waste resources and reinvent the wheel. By carrying SEWA’s integrated approach to the gig economy, we can imagine a stronger cooperative ecosystem that addresses the social and economic needs of workers in the informal economy, which account for over 90% of the Indian economy.

We are excited to be co-leading this work with SEWA over the next two years. As always, write to us if you would like to contribute ([email protected]).

For more information and the original post visit platform.coop

The post ​“We Are Poor but So Many”: Self-Employed Women’s Association of India and the Team of the Platform Co-op Development Kit appeared first on P2P Foundation.

At the heart of our supply partner chain is a sewers cooperative from Croatia. With a fixed percentage of our net sales we support garment workers in South Asia in their fights for better working and living conditions. This way, we want to create a positive impact for both workers in the alternative and in the mainstream economy.[1]

After two successful crowdfunding campaigns[2] and almost three years of business experience, we are now planning to take the next step by developing an innovative web platform which ultimately shall be collectively owned and governed by every party involved in the value chain; from the producers of the raw material all the way to the people who buy the clothes.

From platform capitalism to platform cooperativism

Never was it more obvious than today that capitalism fails to deliver on its promise of benefiting the many and not just the few. By grabbing after the internet, capitalism has given birth to business platforms that increase inequality, undermine democracy and lead to monopolies. The likes of Airbnb, Uber, Amazon and facebook are transforming our workplaces, relationships and societies and we have virtually no control over them. While nearly all aspects of our lives are being shifted online, a new and fairer model for the digital economy is needed. A promising model in that regard is co-ownership, transparency and democratic governance as promoted by an emerging number of so-called platform cooperatives. Contrary to venture capital funded platforms and their systemic flaw having to excessively extract and maximize value only for their shareholders, platform coops seek ways of including everybody who is affected by the platform’s activities in the equation.[3]

Applying the platform coop model to the buyer driven and undemocratic garment industry

How the industry works

Global fashion online sales are expected to grow massively from €415 billion in 2018 to €615 billion in 2022.[4] Approximately 75 million people are employed in the textile, clothing and footwear sector worldwide. Most of them are women. The industry is buyer driven which means that corporate giants such as H&M, Inditex, Primark or Kik usually do not own any of the factories they produce with, yet they basically control them. Their buying power lets them dictate where to produce, what to produce and at what prices. This, together with the rise of fast fashion, a business practice where the brands change their collections in very short time frames, puts enormous pressure on farmers, factory owners and workers. Supply chain transparency is another big issue.

Ways to gain power for workers

One way for workers to turn their often poor labour conditions into good or at least better conditions, has always been by organizing in independent labour unions and subsequently force the employers to negotiate collective agreements. However, this is easier said than done because anti-union practices are widespread in the global garment industry. Even though fundamental rights to join a union and bargain collectively are guaranteed in the big brands’ code of conducts and through various certification schemes, reality on the ground often looks very different.[5] Hence, the percentage of unionised garment workers in today’s main producing countries is very low.

Another way for workers to gain collective power and a higher level of self-determination is by organizing into worker cooperatives. Here, the workers collectively share the ownership of their workplace. Consequently, their work benefits themselves and their local communities rather than just filling the pockets of external shareholders, bosses or factory owners. However, there are currently just very few garment factories operating as a worker cooperative. In the first step of the value chain though, there is already a considerable amount of smallholder cotton farmers who are organized in cooperatives, primarily because together it is easier for them to sell their product and it also allows them to reach a higher price.[6]

Revolutionizing our garment value chain by becoming a platform coop

As of today, our immediate supply chain consists of three main partners. We buy 100 percent organic cotton for our fabric via Fair&Organic from India. The Social Cooperative Humana Nova receives these fabrics and sews them into t-shirts. Printex finishes these shirts with screen prints using water based eco-colours. Counting in the employees of the small manufacturers Fair&Organic works with, the combined number of people working for these three partners is likely to be around 50 to 60. It is safe to say that at least half of them in one way or another work for us during the realisation of a certain project. We should of course not forget all the additional people involved in logistics and transportation as well as in the raw material production. The products offered on our platform/website are only possible through the combined efforts of farmers, mill workers, fabric cutters, patternmakers, sewers, truck drivers, just to scratch the surface.

Now, imagine if all these hard working people were to become co-owners of the dna merch platform.

The co-ownership model would not only allow them to raise their voices concerning issues that affect them (e.g. delivery times, labour costs/wages and working hours), it would also make them eligible to a share of the surplus revenues generated by the platform.

And now try to imagine if all the other people in the value chain will become co-owners as well, those who will be using the platform to buy t-shirts and other garments either for their own use or to source and retail. If implemented properly in a truly inclusive way, this will lead to a fully democratised value chain in which both consumers and producers are empowered likewise. The technology for them to finally meet on eye-level and practice solidarity through direct interaction and trade is available. With the dna merch platform we want to put it in practice.

But why would it be so empowering to facilitate that sort of direct interaction between consumers and workers/producers? Two popular beliefs in today’s mainstream sustainability debate are that a) consumers have the power to make globalization fair and sustainable by shopping ethically and consciously, and b) that companies, to build trust in consumers, should certify their supply chains and guarantee universal standards through the means of independent audits.

While there is absolutely no doubt that our day-to-day shopping decisions matter and can drive companies to adjust and change their policies in a progressive way, it is way too easy to put all the responsibility in the end consumer’s pocket. We think it is hardly possible to always filter all products according to their social and ecological footprint and always make a conscious and ethical decision without going crazy, especially when the majority of products are known to be produced under poor conditions. What’s most important though, is that an approach which solely relies on the consumer power tends to treat workers in the global south as passive subjects who depend on our goodwill and help. Hence, it hinders us from seeing them as people just like us and makes it harder to create relations on eye level.

Audits are problematic, too. The vast majority of them has proven to be merely a paperwork exercise and does not lead to sustainable improvements of working conditions. A study from 2016 titled “Ethical Audits and the Supply Chains of Global Corporations” concludes that audits “are ineffective tools for detecting, reporting, or correcting environmental and labour problems in supply chains [and] they reinforce existing business models and preserve the global production status quo.” As with the consumer power argument, the biggest problem with audits is the passive position that the workers are put in.

We believe that it is the people themselves who know best what needs to be improved at their workplace or their favourite product. So, equipping people with the right tools to connect directly with each other, and putting them in a position where they no longer depend on powerful and manipulating intermediaries like most of today’s corporations are, they will figure out ways that benefit all those involved. With the dna merch platform coop we are determined to set out and prove it.

Lean proof of concept: Focussing on our status-quo

With our platform we want to address three dominant problems of the garment industry, i.e. lack of fairness and democracy, non-transparent prices and supply chains that hinder buyers from making informed decisions, and the fact that there is currently no easy way for workers and consumers to directly connect with each other.

To get things going we will make use of what we already have, a transparent supply chain for t-shirts with a self-organised sewers cooperative at the core, our existing website with a lot of transparent information and a network of customers comprising of trade unions, music bands, retail shops and crowdfunding supporters. We have various functionalities planned for the platform and will add and test them step by step along the way. First, we will add options to start one’s own crowdfunding campaigns and group orders. The idea is to make it possible for bands, organizations and individuals to initiate t-shirt pre-order campaigns to collectively pre-finance the production costs. If wished, users can add a margin on top of the costs to raise money via a public campaign.

Over time, we want to extend the product portfolio and offer not just customized printing on standardized garments but also enable e.g. young fashion designers to realize their first collection through the platform.

In terms of our organizational restructuring process from a German civil law partnership towards a platform coop with a legal structure yet to define, we aim to have an established organisation by mid of 2019 with at least 5 co-owners each from our producer part and the consumer/retailer part of our value chain (e.g. 3 workers from the sewers cooperative, 2 from the print shop, 1 band, 2 crowdfunding supporters, 1 fashion designer, 1 graphic designer)

Our biggest challenges and questions

1.       How exactly could a membership and governance structure look like in practice?
2.       How can we convince our stakeholders to embrace the undertaking of becoming a platform coop?
3.       What are the arguments and incentives that are valid for everybody?
4.       Which ones differ between the various actors?
5.       How will we ensure real participation of the coop members?
6.       Which tools and forms of communication will we need?
7.       How exactly will the business model look like?
8.       Transaction fees, membership fees …
9.       Coop shares
10.       Sales of own collections
11.       Consulting services for onboarding further producer partners
12.       Commission fees for fashion designers who win contracts through the platform from other users?
13.       How exactly can we make use of the Blockchain technology and other recent inventions that foster decentralisation?
14.       Which tools are readily available that we can make use of?
15.       Which impact on membership will the power imbalance in our supply chain most likely have, e.g. the fact that other than the     sewers cooperative all other partners are conventionally structured businesses?
16.       Should co-ownership of the platform become a prerequisite for being able to access all services and functionalities of the platform?

Call to action

We need and want more people to get involved in this!

Please get in touch by briefly mentioning what aspect interests you the most and where your expertise lies. We definitely need people with a technical background, people with experience working in coops, people with knowledge of the garment industry, social media and marketing experts, organizational theorists and probably a lot more that we cannot think of right now : )

Also, please feel free to reach out if you just want to comment on the idea as such or on one of the questions and challenges mentioned above or if you would like to add another one.

We are grateful for every input and consideration that you share with us!

You can best reach us via email or you can directly comment on the document here.

Doreen & Anton

[1]

[2] See https://www.startnext.com/dnamerch and https://www.startnext.com/dna-merch-vol-2

[3] For more info visit https://platform.coop

[4] See https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/ecommerce-fashion-industry

[5] See e.g. http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Global-Brief-1-Ethical-Audits-and-the-Supply-Chains-of-Global-Corporations.pdf

[6] See e.g. https://www.ica.coop/en/media/news/small-scale-farmers-achieve-a-26-higher-share-of-consumer-price-when-organized-in

The post dna merch: A Platform Co-op in the Making appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The oceans were the original global commons, shed and navigated for ages. But new technologies have added numerous challenges to sustaining our oceans: offshore oil drilling, deep-sea mining, and overfishing. However, it’s crucial that water, both freshwater and saltwater, remains a commons and held in the public trust, because access to clean and affordable water is a basic human right.

A widespread approach to delivering water to cities consists of establishing a municipal entity, under direct or indirect local governmental control, that collects water dues from all customers (residential as well as businesses). Water rates are determined through a political process, and are intended to provide affordable water supply and sewage treatment while covering the costs. Public water supplies of this kind are often highly successful, especially in countries where there are effective methods to keep local government accountable to its citizens. However, in some cases, municipal water utilities may become inefficient (providing a service of low quality or at high cost) if insufficient incentives are built into the system to ensure that the service is continually upgraded. In extreme cases, municipal utilities may fall seriously behind in provisioning growing cities, or may provide jobs as a form of political patronage.

One type of water distribution, beyond public and private, is a cooperative system, where the distribution system is owned by its customers. The existence of this alternative is too often ignored, but it is by no means rare. For example, in the U.S., there are over 3,000 rural water cooperatives, which were set up since the New Deal in order to cheaply build up and maintain a water supply infrastructure in the rural areas of the country.

Regardless of the ownership of a water utility (public, private, or cooperative), a utility may return polluted water to a river or the sea — especially if downriver users are not able to make an impact on decision-making. This points to the need for larger communities to assert their rights to clean water. —Emily Skeehan and Nikolas Kichler

1. Tarun Bharat Sangh: Fostering Community-driven Solutions to Secure Water Access and Rejuvenate Rivers

India makes up around 18 percent of the global population, and yet only has access to 4 percent of the world’s drinkable water resources, according to CNN. Since the 1980s, both rural and urban areas in the country have faced drinking-water shortages and crop failures. This scarcity is exacerbated by river pollution associated with sewage disposal and industrial waste. To address this crisis, in 1985, Rajendra Singh and others formed the local nongovernmental organization Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS, or Young India Organization) in Alvar, a rural district in Rajasthan.

TBS has worked with rural villagers to revive the use of traditional water-harvesting solutions. In particular, they used “johads” (small earthen reservoirs) to harvest rainwater in a way that reduced evaporation losses to substantially replenish local aquifers. People also shifted to organic farming techniques to make more efficient use of water. TBS advocated for these and other methods of water management as a way to bring about a culture of self-sufficiency to local farming communities. The River Arvari Parliament expanded on this objective. Following the revival of the Arvari River in 1990, representatives from the area’s 72 villages formed the transparent, community-driven “river parliament” to maintain the health of the river. To date, Rajasthan communities have created and managed more than 11,000 johads, replenishing more than 250,000 wells. Within 28 years, seven river systems that had been dried up for 80 years have been revived. —Nikolas Kichler

2. Resident Development Committees: Community-led Management Over Local Water Supplies

Among the African nations, Zambia is one of the most rapidly urbanizing countries in the continent. In its capital, Lusaka, 60 percent of the population live in unplanned settlements that are an urban and rural hybrid. This has led to extensive administrative challenges over clean water and public sanitation. In response, the Lusaka Water and Sewage Company, the Lusaka City Council, and various nongovernmental organizations worked together to develop Resident Development Committees (RDCs). The RDCs provide legal entities for local residents to foster cooperation with unplanned neighborhoods, thereby allowing planning, construction, and maintenance of water utilities to become self-organized and co-managed through them. Financial responsibilities, such as fee collection, are also under their jurisdiction. Over time, the RDCs have become the primary managing units for local collective decision-making over water issues, and have sustained a regular flow of information, transparency, and accountability to the communities they represent. Many neighborhoods now have access to a reliable and largely self-sustaining source of clean water. The benefits of RDCs for unplanned communities have been so convincing that formally planned areas are also advocating for the same model. Learn more from the review of Bangalore and Lusaka case studies, a paper on groundwater self-supply in Zambia, and this article on Zambia’s water service gap—Nikolas Kichler

3. depave: Communities Turning Pavement Into Green Public Space

Paved surfaces contribute to stormwater pollution, by directing rainwater with toxic urban pollutants to local streams and rivers. This, in turn, degrades water quality and natural habitats. Since Portland receives a lot of rain, impervious pavements are especially problematic for the city’s stormwater management. Two friends from Portland thought of a straightforward solution to this problem: remove as much impervious pavement as possible. They organized their first official depaving event in 2008. Since then, they formed depave, a nonprofit organization that promotes the removal of pavement from urban areas to address the harmful effects of stormwater runoff, as well as to create green public spaces. depave seeks out groups that are already community-oriented, such as schools and faith-based groups, and encourages them to work together on the same project. depave has coordinated over 50 depaving projects in Portland. Eric Rosewall, depave’s co-founder, reports the organization has depaved more than 12,500 square meters of asphalt since 2008, diverting an estimated 12,000 cubic meters of stormwater from storm drains. Over the years, depave has grown to support depaving across the Portland metro region and beyond, through their depave network training services. —Eric Rosewall (depave) and Adrien Labaeye

These three short case studies are adapted from our latest book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons.”

Photo by *SHERWOOD*

The post How 3 community organizations are asserting their right to clean water appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Jakarta’s governors have traditionally been (quietly) supportive of ending water privatization in the city, and in 2013, the governor of Jakarta heeded residents’ calls and declared a plan to take over water services from the private sector. Public water company PAM Jaya demanded a contract renegotiation with the private water operators, and the provincial government of Jakarta announced a plan to purchase private water operators’ shares. In 2013, the provincial house of representatives approved a budget for PAM Jaya to proceed with share repurchase.

One particularly effective strategy in November 2012 involved residents, represented by legal aid organisation LBH Jakarta, filing a citizen lawsuit against water privatization in Jakarta. Amrta Institute supported the challenge with evidence for use in court. This long and successful legal challenge played a major role in maintaining political pressure.

The labor union’s demonstration in front of Palyja’s office, in the elite buildings of Central Jakarta, April 2011

The backdrop to this – two decades of failed water privatization in Jakarta and half the population having no piped water – led the Amrta Instite to run public media campaigns, produce popular publications about the issue, and make documentaries.

At first most people were not aware that water problems were the result of privatization, and that the solution was to return water services to public management. But now we have decisions from three courts supporting public water management; the Constitutional Court decision, Central Jakarta District Court decision and Supreme Court decision. In October 2017, the governor told the media that he will implement the court decision.

A woman who was washing in Penjaringan, North Jakarta, admitted that the cost to buy water consumed almost 70% of her husband’s income.

“The most impressive thing is that the initiative did not give up fighting against systematic/structured powers – from domestic to international, from governments to corporations – which look impossible to challenge.”

– Satoko Kishimoto

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us.

Or visit amrta-institute.org

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Jakarta: Movement against Water Privatization appeared first on P2P Foundation.

In Mumbai, the right to water in people’s settlements (known as slums) was revoked in 1996 when the Maharashtra Urban Development Department instructed all municipal corporations to stop water infrastructure being installed in them.

Since then, the right to water and sanitation has been deeply neglected in these communities. An estimated three million people in Mumbai have no access to water and lack of sanitation forces 70% of them to defecate in the open. Those living in people’s settlements buy expensive, low-quality water from private suppliers – a time-consuming activity, especially for women, young girls and children.

Photo credit: Pani Haq Samiti

Against this backdrop, Pani Haq Samiti (PHS, Committee on the Right to Water) came about. Its members included people’s settlement residents, activists, academics and non-governmental organisations. It relied on voluntary donations while other institutions and organisations helped with technical expertise, research support, advocacy strategies, strategy and legal support, all of which helped mobilize people.

As the mobilisation took off, people demanded greater transparency, and this coalesced into the Pani Haq Abhiyaan (Right to Water movement), creating widespread awareness of water privatization by raising it with political parties, elected officials, members of the Legislative Assembly and Parliament.

Eventually, widespread agitation and fierce campaigning across the city resulted in denial of water to people’s settlements being shelved, and two state judges stating that whether homes are deemed ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’, Article 21 of the Indian Constitution – the right to life – intrinsically implies it is the responsibility of the government to provide water to all. On 9 January 2017 a circular was issued to all municipal officials to implement the policy.

The judgment and subsequent policy change have been the campaign’s biggest achievements. People have been the biggest beneficiaries of this as water connections will be available to them, irrespective of the ‘legality’ of the settlement. Moreover, water provided will be through the Municipal Corporation, and not expensive private sources.

Exhibition on Mumbai’s water by Pani Haq Samiti at Marine Drive. Photo credit: Pani Haq Samiti

“The transformation from successfully fighting against privatisation into a broader water rights movement, concerned with the denial of rights to the most vulnerable people and communities is remarkable. The positive court decision to defend water access for all would not come about without strong social mobilisation.”

– Satoko Kishimoto

Would you like to learn more about this initiative? Please contact us.

Or visit panihaqsamiti.org

Transformative Cities’ Atlas of Utopias is being serialized on the P2P Foundation Blog. Go to TransformativeCities.org for updates.

The post Mumbai: People’s Campaign for Right to Water appeared first on P2P Foundation.

This book, in the STEPS Centre’s Pathways to Sustainability series, looks at how six grassroots innovation movements around the world have developed and what challenges they face.

Download the Accepted Manuscript of Chapter 1 (pdf, Open Access)

Innovation is increasingly invoked by policy elites and business leaders as vital for tackling global challenges like sustainable development. Often overlooked, however, is the fact that networks of community groups, activists, and researchers have been innovating grassroots solutions for social justice and environmental sustainability for decades. Unencumbered by disciplinary boundaries, policy silos, or institutional logics, these ‘grassroots innovation movements’ identify issues and questions neglected by formal science, technology and innovation organizations. Grassroots solutions arise in unconventional settings through unusual combinations of people, ideas and tools.

Grassroots Innovation Movements examines six diverse grassroots innovation movements in India, South America and Europe, situating them in their particular dynamic historical contexts. Analysis explains why each movement frames innovation and development differently, resulting in a variety of strategies. The book explores the spaces where each of these movements have grown, or attempted to do so. It critically examines the pathways they have developed for grassroots innovation and the challenges and limitations confronting their approaches.

With mounting pressure for social justice in an increasingly unequal world, policy makers are exploring how to foster more inclusive innovation. In this context grassroots experiences take on added significance. This book provides timely and relevant ideas, analysis and recommendations for activists, policy-makers, students and scholars interested in encounters between innovation, development and social movements.

This book is part of the STEPS Centre’s Pathways to Sustainability book series.

CONTENTS

Part 1: Overview
1. Introduction
2. A Conceptual Framework for Studying GIMs
Part 2: The Cases 
3. Movement for Socially Useful Production
4. Appropriate Technology Movement
5. Peoples’ Science Movements
6. Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and Fablabs
7. Social Technologies Network
8. Honey Bee Network
Part 3: Lessons
9. Grassroots Innovation Movements: Lessons for Theory and Practice
10. Conclusions: Constructing Pathways for Sustainability with the Grassroots

Order the book from Routledge (you can get a 20% discount by using the order code FLR40)

Photo by eoringel

The post Book of the Day: Grassroots Innovation Movements appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Khushboo Balwani: Here’s the problem: How can consumers become producers? The shift from consumer culture to maker culture is often described in terms of a synthesis between consumers and producers —”prosumers.” What practical steps can be taken for people to become prosumers?

Here’s how one organization is working on the problem: In 2002, Neil Gershenfeld, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), visited India to teach and explore projects that overlap with his work on fabrication labs or “Fab Labs.” Responding to the challenges facing the local community, Gershenfeld suggested developing a Fab Lab in Vigyan Ashram, an education center for science located in Pabal, India. The organization has been working with the local community of Pabal since 1983 to solve problems in the region with the help of low-cost materials and traditional tools. With a focus on self-managed sustainability, it has enabled the development of new models of peer production and local entrepreneurship.

The first Fab Lab outside of MIT, the Vigyan Ashram Fab Lab worked with MIT in procuring the latest tools and machines for collaborative production, rather than relying on ready-made solutions. Since then, several Fab Labs have been created worldwide.

Indeed, today there are some 665 Fab Labs in 65 countries. Taken as a whole, Fab Lab is a distributed international network of scientific researchers and community inventors who define, conduct, and apply new discoveries and inventions for the benefit of both researchers and the local community. Fab Labs support a global design commons where members design, code, share knowledge, and create digital instruction manuals using open-source principles. What gets designed in one lab can theoretically be fabricated in another lab, anywhere in the world.

The projects at the Vigyan Ashram Fab Lab emerge either from local researchers or the local community. Once projects are conceived, the organization passes them to its students and opens a global discussion within the larger network of Fab Labs to leverage open designs and shared knowledge. Several prototypes are made locally and tested within the community using shared assets (space, knowledge, tools) until the final design is developed.

Results:

• The Vigyan Ashram Fab Lab has developed a number of innovative solutions to local problems, such as a pedal-powered generator, egg incubator, and weather data lodger.
• Thanks to its proven solutions, the Vigyan Ashram Fab Lab has become a point of reference and a consultant to local and national authorities on urban challenges. Furthermore, it has inspired the government of India and the state government of Maharashtra to develop a plan to establish tinkering labs and innovation centers at both local and district levels, as reported by Yogesh Kulkarni, executive director of Vigyan Ashram.

Learn more from:

• Fab Lab Vigyan Ashram
• The Fab Foundation

This case study is adapted from our latest book, “Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons.” Get a copy today.
Header image of students in Vigyan Ashram building 3D printer under guidance of Japanese Fab Lab worker Mr. Yutaka Tokushima. Provided by Chihiro Matsuura.

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Nick Buxtom: The bad news streaming through our media in 2017 has been relentless. However it doesn’t tell the full story. Beyond the headlines, there have been countless amazing social movement struggles in different regions of the world that deserve to be celebrated. Here are ten stories showing that people power works:

1. EL SALVADOR BANS MINING

In a classic David and Goliath tale, this small Central American state took on a Canadian transnational corporation to become the first country in the world to ban metals mining. Farmer communities led the struggle when they came together in 2004 to save the Lempa River watershed. They built a national coalition in the face of massive repression (including the assassination of several activists), formed alliances internationally, took on the Canadian corporation OceanaGold and finally secured a mining ban in March 2017.

2. #METOO CAMPAIGN CHALLENGES IMPUNITY FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Sexual harassment has been a constant reality for women everywhere for generations, but in 2017 the wall of impunity was breached – suddenly and powerfully. Revelations of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s repeated sexual abuses prompted 1.7 million #metoo tweets in 85 countries, encouraging women in every walk of life to come forward publicly to denounce sexual harassment. Many men have been forced to resign from positions of power and influence, and there seems to be finally a consensus that sexual harassment must stop. This shift is not an accident or the credit of a few journalists, but the result of decades of tireless campaigning by women’s organizations worldwide fighting for equality.

3. FRENCH LAW ON MULTINATIONALS

At a time when corporate power has become seemingly impregnable, French campaigners showed that transnational corporations can be defeated. In a four-year-long campaign, they mobilized for a new law, approved in March 2017, which recognizes the responsibility of parent companies for human rights violations committed by subsidiaries, subcontractors and providers. The law was passed in the face of considerable corporate opposition and is a major step forward in the fight against impunity of transnational corporations, addressing the legal complexity of their supply chains that has made it so difficult for affected communities to get justice. The law has also given a boost to ongoing efforts to create an international binding treaty on transnationals at the United Nations.

4. PRIVATIZATION IS BEING ROLLED BACK, COMMUNITY BY COMMUNITY

After many years of failed privatization projects, communities worldwide are successfully fighting off privatization and bringing privatized services back under public control. In 2017 in Cali, Colombia, a public sector workers union succeeded in defeating the proposed privatization of the municipal-owned telecommunications company, and then set up a public-public partnership (PuP) with a Uruguayan national public enterprise to improve the service. In another case, Indonesia’s Supreme Court ruled this year that privatisation of water is a violation of human rights and annulled an agreement between Jakarta’s city-owned water operator, PAM Jaya, and two private companies. More than 835 communities worldwide have brought their public services back under public control in recent years.

5. TRUMP’S AGENDA FACES MASSIVE POPULAR RESISTANCE

Donald Trump’s election was one of the most disturbing nights in modern memory, but it hasn’t gone so well for him since. From the Women’s March during his very first day of office, Trump’s presidency has faced unprecedented popular resistance. In the first week, his blanket ban on Muslims from six nations was met with spontaneous protests at more than 20 major international airports across the U.S. and has since been blocked repeatedly by the courts, though it is now being temporarily enacted. Popular movements involved in fighting white supremacy, corporate greed and militarism have reported a massive surge in engagement and support. Meanwhile, a sustained movement organized by citizens nationwide helped prevent the GOP from rolling back Obamacare, and a young, progressive electoral movement is strengthening ahead of 2018 midterms.

6. GAMBIAN AUTOCRAT OVERTHROWN

Military leader Yahya Jammeh, who ruled Gambia with an iron fist for 22 years, was forced to step down at the beginning of 2017 after losing the 2016 election. Jammeh predicted he would rule for a billion years, but young Gambians came out in large numbers and used social media to mobilize votes for his opponent, Adama Barrow. Jammeh tried to overrule the election results, but fierce opposition from trade unions, professional associations and pressure from outside states forced Jammeh to relinquish power.

7. ALMOST TWO-THIRDS OF AUSTRALIAN VOTERS SAY YES TO MARRIAGE EQUALITY

Australia became the 25th country to legally embrace marriage equality in 2017 after voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of changing the definition of marriage to include same sex relationships in an advisory referendum. Australia’s parliament then approved a bill almost unanimously. Popular and legal support for gay rights may seem unsurprising now, but it is worth remembering that just 20 years ago, there was not one nation that treated same sex relationships equally to heterosexual ones.

8. FARMER REBELLION IN INDIA

In November, tens of thousands of peasants and rural laborers from 20 states, representing more than 180 peasant organizations, gathered in Delhi for an unprecedented show of strength against the reactionary Modi government. Facing rising production costs, increased droughts and falling incomes, the farmers demanded debt relief, better prices and effective crop insurance schemes. While the government did not immediately respond to their key demands, the united platform is likely to have a growing impact as farmers take the campaign across the country in 2018 and 2019.

9. GUATEMALA RISES UP AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CORRUPTION

Since 2015, a series of mass protests against corruption have rocked Guatemala. These came to a head in September 2017 when President Jimmy Morales attempted to expel a Colombian investigator with the U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala. Indigenous communities have played a leading role in the protests and are also engaged in an ongoing fight with Congress to approve a constitution that recognizes greater indigenous autonomy. In October, a national strike led by a coalition of social movements in 20 cities demanded the resignation of Morales in addition to calling for land reform and nationalization of the energy sector.

10. RISE OF MOMENTUM AND TRANSFORMATION OF U.K. LABOUR PARTY

In 2017, a grassroots campaign that had first mobilized behind the left candidate Jeremy Corbyn to make him leader of the Labour Party, again showed its power when it substantially increased Labour’s vote in the General Election, almost ending the ruling party’s majority. The movement, called Momentum, made up of 30,000 active members, showed how an organized grassroots operation could defy rightwing mass media and win seats. The movement has made the Labour Party the biggest membership party in Europe, with a platform committed to bringing privatized services back under public ownership, abolishing university tuition fees and ending fracking. Momentum is now widely recognized as the most vibrant element of the party.

These stories and others are taken from a recap of the year by Transnational Institute, a progressive research institute committed to building a just, democratic and sustainable world.

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