Commitments by the president-elect of Brazil for solidarity economy

Dilma Rouseff was elected on 31st Oct as next president of Brazil (term: from 1st Jan 2011 to 31st Dec 2014) and she has done the following 13 commitments (click here for the original version in Portuguese).  She has also said that she will approve the Solidarity Economy Act.

1. Consolidate the integration of the National Policy of Solidarity Economy with the country’s sustainable development strategies.
2. Constitute the Sistema Nacional de Economia Solidária (National System of Solidarity Economy, SINAES) to stimulate the strengthening of the solidarity economy and to enable the articulation among different levels of the government.
3. Ensure resources for financing programmes and actions to solidarity-based enterprises.
4. Complete legal instruments which make solidarity economy enterprises feasible and facilitate their formalisation.
5. Promote an institutional atmosphere favourable for the development of solidarity economy, completing the procedure to access to public resources, credit and formalisation of enterprises.
6. Complete the access to the knowledge and to the technology:
   • Nurture technology and innovation targeted for the solidarity economy, underlining social technology projects;
   • Promote policies of training, technical assessment and professional qualification which are adequate to the solidarity economy enterprises;
   • Broaden the access to the education, at all the levels, of the workers of solidarity-based enterprises.
7. Develop and nurture mechanisms of solidarity finance which are adequate to the financing of working capital, of costs and for the purchase of equips and infrastructure of solidarity-based enterprises.
8. Nurture initiatives of solidarity-based commercialisation and strengthen mechanisms which facilitate the access to the public purchases of goods and services.
9. Develop the solidarity economy as policy for productive inclusion, economic emancipation and generation of work and income targeted to the public benefitting from social programmes.
10. Recognise and nurture the solidarity economy in the strategies of international integration, especially in Latin America (Mercosur and Unasur) and Africa.
11. Strengthen the interdisciplinarity of public policies of the solidarity economy in articulation with the different sectors and policies of the government;
12. Give continuity to the completion of government policies for the solidarity economy, warranting resources and investing in the capacity for the elaboration, management and execution of public policies for this sector.
13. Strengthen the National Council of Solidarity Economy as promoter of the National Conferences of Solidarity Economy and of the participation, of the social control and accompanying of policies and programmes of solidarity economy.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on Brazil…