CLLD needs indicators of social capital 15 February 2023
Posted by cooperatoby in EU.Tags: CLLD, local developent
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At the excellent LDNet AGM yesterday I learnt that the EU establishment is sceptical of the value of the community-led approach to local development. Last July, the Court of Auditors published a report <https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/DocItem.aspx?did=61355> which concludes that “there is little evidence to suggest that the benefits of the LEADER approach outweigh the costs and risks involved … many of the projects we looked at could have been financed at a lower cost by other EU funds.”
The report criticises the slowness and administrative complexity of LEADER:
“LEADER’s participative approach incurs high administrative and running costs. These include activities to engage the local community and support applicants, and entail extra administrative requirements compared with mainstream spending programmes. According to the European Commission, these costs reached a total of over €1 billion (i.e. a quarter of total spending) by the end of 2020.”
“The LEADER approach involves higher administrative and running costs, slow approval processes and did not result in projects with demonstrable additional benefits.”
It’s good to see the auditors don’t only look at money: they also remark that the LAGs fail to represent women and young people. It is also good to see that the auditors drew on LDNet’s own website for the best figures on how many CLLD project there actually are, namely Stefan Kah’s report <https://ldnet.eu/implementing-cohesion-policy-funds-through-multi-fund-clld/ >. LDNet gives some criticism of the report here: <https://ldnet.eu/a-review-of-the-eca-report-on-leader-and-clld/ >
I think the auditors have dumbed the whole thing down. Of course public money has to be spent accountably, so we have to evaluate the results. But if you are trying to do something long-term involving human capacity, the results are slow to materialise.
CLLD projects have major effects on the individuals who comprise local communities, and do much to improve the quality of their lives. Once they are connected up, participative communities can do so much to drive progress for themselves. But this is all so intangible, and measuring well-being is an inexact science. By contrast one-off capital projects are so much quicker and easier to pay for – and you can easily prove the results (although the Turkish-Syrian earthquake shows you need to have competent and upright building inspectors.) That’s why depressed towns like Naples and Charleroi are surrounded by luxurious motorway networks. Golf courses are thought to be good for attracting foreign investors. And, it was suggested, capital projects offer more opportunities to cream off excess profits and backhanders.
You get what you measure
The sad fact is that no one is trying very hard to measure the social impact of community-led development. For rural areas, the EAFRD uses 3 result indicators: % of population covered by LD strategies, % of population benefiting from improved services/infrastructures, and jobs created. For coastal areas, the EMFF just uses employment created and employment maintained. The ERDF and ESF have no CLLD-specific indicators at all. There is no attempt to evaluate the qualitative effects, for instance on retaining rural populations or on long-term development potential. Without these, our rural areas will become deserts.
But the range of possible indicators available goes much deeper: the ESI funds are currently evaluated using a bank of hundreds of indicators, including several hundred for social inclusion <https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=8513>. For instance they report on the number of people at risk of poverty (AROPE) and on material and social deprivation (MSD). But there are as yet no agreed indicators for ‘softer’ or community components of development like education and associative capacity. A number of researchers have investigated how to measure social capital, but this has got nowhere. One big problem is that of tautology: if you define social capital as the benefits that we derive from cooperating with others, then whenever you evaluate a project you will always find that it played a positive role. It seems that the least we can do is measure changes in perception.
The LDNet meeting concluded that we had to “tell the story” of the value of community-led development better. But how to create auditable, concrete evidence? One activity for the next year is to investigate this.
Germany rediscovers the social economy – 10 years late 14 December 2022
Posted by cooperatoby in EU, social economy, Social enterprise.Tags: DE, EU, social enterprise
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I should have realised that something was brewing when the European Social Economy Summit culminated in Mannheim in April 2021. We couldn’t actually go there of course as this was during the COVID lockdown.
This time, to mark 10 years of Social Economy Europe and one year of the Social Economy Action Plan on 7 December, I could theoretically have gone in person to the European Parliament. But it was booked out, so I had to be content with a video link. I saw SEE’s birthday cake, but I missed the festive glass of wine.
It was an elevating, exciting couple of hours, jam-packed with inspiration and solid evidence of the social economy’s growth and effectiveness. It’s hard to say which of the causes for celebration is the more significant.
Amid the celebrations and exhortations, the big news for me was that Germany has rediscovered the social economy.
A German SEAP
After serving as a Green MEP since 2009, Sven Giegold was appointed State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action last December. Now, as Sven’s colleague Katrin Elsemann announced, Germany is finally getting down to writing a social economy strategy too. Based on the European SEAP, it covers policy and legal frameworks, public procurement, access to finding and impact measurement. More practically, it also includes support infrastructure, links between businesses and associations, and women’s entrepreneurship. At European level two important issues are state aid and cross-border work by associations. The action plan is to be launched next Spring, and (just like EQUAL 2 decades ago) will be funded by ESF+. As an earnest of its intent, Germany will sign the Luxembourg Declaration. It remains to involve the education and economics ministries.
It’s a long overdue change in policy. In 2002, Germany stormed into the EQUAL programme with a very well-structured and strategic programme. Like Britain, it focused resources on a small number of large projects, which built partnerships between public authorities, welfare associations and assorted social innovators. Germany set up a thriving National Thematic Group, which by the mid-point of EQUAL in 2005 was on the point of publishing a comprehensive handbook. But for mysterious reasons the plug was pulled. The focus was turned back to the more anodyne idea ‘inclusive entrepreneurship’. Nevertheless at the final event in June 2027 in Hannover, the social economy presented very strong evidence. The social economy went on to become the third most popular theme in EQUAL, with 17 countries prioritising it. And in 2011 the Social Business Initiative took the struggle a step further. Welcome back!
The future of the planet
The whole event was a miracle of timekeeping managed by Chris Gordon of the Irish Social Enterprise Network, who managed with good humour to compress 16 speeches into his allotted span of 2¾ hours.
Noting that it has taken 10 years of hard work to get to this point, Alain Coheur, President of the EESC’s Single Market, Production and Consumption Section, said we had to keep up the pressure: “It’s about the future of the planet! We have a unique historic opportunity. We are not an epiphenomeon, an accident in capitalism. We have to gather the fruit of our work, not be usurped by consultants. We bring hope!”
Letting loose a scoop, he announced a conference in 2024 in Liège. But before then comes one on 17 November 2023 in Donostia-San Sebastián.
As an envoi, SEE’s Victor Meseguer was finally allowed half a minute in the limelight to exhort us to further collective action. Over to us.
Update 20 Oct 23:
Pioneers’ Post interview on Germany’s new national strategy for social innovation and “companies oriented towards the common good”The social economy cocreation game 1 December 2022
Posted by cooperatoby in EU, social economy, Social enterprise.Tags: EU, social enterprise
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Being at the launch of the Transition Pathway for the Proximity and Social Economy in the ritzy surroundings of the Résidence Palace two weeks ago made me feel my age. It reminded me of the thought I had midway through my life about generations. What we did in the 70s new younger people redo every 15 years or so since – and I should be grateful for that. Good luck to you!
Nevertheless some aspects of the event grated on my aging senses. There was the “game show” atmosphere, with audience participation in the form of yelps of delight – it’s most unBritish. Sedate dignity is out. Long speeches were banished in favour of an “interview” format – and I think I sensed Commissioner Thierry Breton’s slight bemusement. To some of us in the room it felt artificial – but I can imagine that for the greater number of people (300) watching on their screens at home, the speedy format was as unputdownable as television tries to be. But have our attention spans really shrunk so much?
The terms of engagement between the movement and the powers that be have changed radically. We are now invited to take part in a process of “co-creation” – and what does this mean? We have the ideas and the energy and the public authorities have the power and the money. It’s an uneven partnership, as we all recognise. But that doesn’t mean a new “game” can’t emerge which can be productive. In this case, on the one hand the social economy vaunts is achievements. In response, the Commission asks the movement to put its time and money where its mouth is and make “pledges” as to what it is actually going to do about it. So the rhetorical stage is set. Hey presto – pledges did indeed emerge (a nice bit of stage management, this). You can make your own pledge here
What we have is the Commission using its “power of convening” to focus attention on what the social economy can do for the world. Plenty of people want to be part of this, and the Commission has the means and reach to multiply our efforts. Bravo.
Beware dilution
Our Transition Pathway is probably the most dynamic of the 14 under construction. It contains 14 action points – 7 green and 7 digital. The thinking is based on ‘solid business cases’ and collaboration with conventional enterprises, which is recipe for dilution and needs watching. The two most significant are probably:
- local green deals to bring the social economy into partnership on the ground; and
- support for platform co-operatives, which will do a lot for workers’ and citizens’ rights in the gig economy.
But not everything changes: even the 30-year saga of the European associations statute is to be revived!
Bouncing forward together – recovery through community-led approaches 10 April 2021
Posted by cooperatoby in EU.Tags: CLLD, Covid, DE, food, LDnet, local development, urban
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Good local development responses to Covid were showcased at the first of LDnet’s recovery webinars on 8 April, from rural, urban and coastal areas.
The ADAC Leader Action Group in Guadalajara, Spain, started by surveying what businesses need, said Lola Fernández Perpiñan:
• to adapt their business models: an internet visibility seminar
• safety training: a certificated course was run, but most businesses found it too expensive to put the recommendations into practice
• investment: the LAG set up a €600,000 grant fund
• workers: the LAG used social media to identify 800 potential asparagus pickers, of whom 200 were employed
Covid has had the benefit of stemming depopulation as urbanites retreat to the countryside to telework. The Structural Funds will be used to improve broadband.
According to Giuseppe Pace of the Institute for Studies on the Mediterranean, the impact of Covid in Naples was that the tourism boom of the past decade fell off a cliff (a 73% fall). Researchers found that the industry was fragmented and working on the supposition of endless, but unsustainable, growth. No one had the skills to develop digital marketing tools. The municipality has developed a plan to reform governance, to defragment the market, and to diversify. It will create a platform on which public authorities and private entrepreneurs can co-operate, make more of the area’s UNESCO-level cultural heritage, and improve digital skills.
New products and new co-operations
Monica Veronesi from Farnet said that Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) have been taking actions including securing protective equipment, promoting seafood, digital sales, negotiating manageable restrictions on social distancing at sea, developing new products like sanitiser, and building new partnerships – for instance between fishers, processors, restaurants, carers and delivery services.
The Baltic Sea Coast FLAG in Germany was relatively well-prepared. Back in 2011 it set up Fisch vom Kutter, a simple system that enables 60 fishers to text details of their catch to port as they sail home. Buyers meet the boats at the quay: they get fresher fish and the fishers get higher prices. When Covid struck, sales rose 20% despite the absence of tourists.
In France, the Esterel Côte d’Azur FLAG reacted rapidly to the pandemic by bringing fishers, fish farmers, a fileting company and restaurants together to deliver ready meals to emergency workers such as doctors, nurses and firefighters, whose canteens had closed down. It thus created both new products and new co-operations. It also distributed branded cool boxes to stimulate direct sales.
These presentations led to a lively Q&A session from the 50+ participants, from Finland to North Macedonia.
Book for the remaining 3 webinars, on 15th, 22nd and 29th April, at: https://ldnet.eu/registration-opens-for-ldnet-webinars-recovery-through-community-led-approaches-april-2021/
Books and music as routes to migrant integration 8 April 2021
Posted by cooperatoby in EU, migrants.Tags: migrants
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This afternoon I attended the Greek Diversity Dialogue Forum, part of the MAX project, which was really interesting, full of energising stories. It’s one of 15 such events taking place around Europe.
El Sistema Greece uses music to give refugee children in Athens and Corinth a new family where they can be themselves. Each child is given an instrument so that they can practice at home – and they are noticeably proud when they show them off. They attend weekly classical music lessons in groups of 10, which is in itself rare in Europe. The groups rapidly become multi-level as students come and go. The students support each other but nevertheless it’s a big challenge for the teachers.
In a group where 40 languages are spoken, teaching is mainly done in Greek and English but it works by magic – because everybody wants it to. Apart from the weekly lessons and rehearsals, El Sistema holds prestigious concerts of its Youth Choir and Youth Orchestra.
We Need Books, which runs libraries that have developed all sorts of non-formal educational activities. It relies on donated books, and at the moment gives them away, although it is hoping to grow into a lending library. Its library, in one of Athens’s most multicultural neighbourhoods, Kypseli, now houses 14,000 volumes in 28 languages. It has become a cultural centre offering a language café and classes in origami, philosophy, music and story-telling. This varied non-formal education is crucial in helping migrants to integrate into Greek society.
Apart from these excellent examples, the forum also addressed employability, the role of Athens municipality, and that of the media in changing the narrative to report the positive sides of migration, not only the negative stereotype.
Watch the DDF space!
The Digital Social Economy flexes its muscles 29 October 2020
Posted by cooperatoby in cooperative, EU, social economy, Social enterprise.Tags: co-op, EU, social enterprise
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To open, a digital cooperative joke: “How many cooperators does it take to change a lightbulb? – 11011/1100100”.
I’ve just been really impressed by the workshop on the digital social economy at the second session today of the EU social economy summit (EUSES). Chaired by Luca Pastorelli of DIESIS, the workshop made it an online conference that was definitely worth taking part in.
The key message is that 75% of the world’s digital economy is run from the USA, and only 3% from the EU. The social economy, by building bridges between innovation and local communities, plays a crucial role in Europe’s digital strategy, which aims to deliver technology that works for people, a fair and competitive digital economy, an open, democratic and sustainable digital society, and Europe as a global digital player. To do that, the digital social economy needs to scale up, and this requires investment and ecosystem support.
At the moment, the digital economy does not work for people and is unfair, closed and undemocratic. An acute analysis by Professor Trebor Scholz of the Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) shows that it provides insecure low-paid and risky jobs that leave workers subject to harassment and unable to plan their lives. It fragments the workforce and makes it difficult for them to organise. “Behind every Uber driver on the street are hundreds of invisible workers in care and tech,” he said.
Giuseppe Guerini of CECOP pointed out that the digital economy has created new forms of inequality and exclusion, and that trust has become a scarce social resource. Cooperatives can help rectify this by providing work which offers dignity and a sense of identity.
Leading edge platform cooperatives
Damiano Avellino defined platforms – they don’t own or produce what they sell – they connect people. And in so doing, they extract money from local economies through the commissions they levy. during the pandemic, the owners of major platforms have enriched themselves inordinately. Contrast this with the behaviour of Fairbnb, which donates half of its 15% commission to local community projects. In the Emilia Romagna region of Italy, 1/3 of production is cooperative, and next month sees the launch of a new platform initiative called Coop Valley. Connecting people is what social enterprises are great at doing.
Sven Bartilsson reported that in Sweden, Coompanion is working with the Fairgig and Giglab projects to set up open date platforms which will allow freelancers to keep control of their own reputations. It is difficult to challenge monopolistic incumbents, and new cooperative platforms need capital if they are to survive the ‘valley of death’ as they build up a critical mass of users. He hopes to set up a €10m investment fund for digital cooperatives (Fairfond).
Timo Berg of Germany’s largest freelance cooperative, 4freelance Recruitment offers its 700 members a low (10%) commission, transparency through an open books policy, fair contracts with no ‘handcuffs’, control over their CVs, and benefits like cheap liability insurance.
It may look like Goliath has won the day, but the social economy has distinct strengths. David is starting to flex his muscles.
Presentations are to be posted on the DIESIS and EUSES websites.
To read:
Regions take an interest in the social economy 15 September 2020
Posted by cooperatoby in EU, social economy, Social enterprise.Tags: EU, social enterprise
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The SEDEC commission of the EU Committee of Regions has published a report I cowrote with Haris Martinos for METIS earlier this year. It’s great to see that local and regional authorities (LRAs) are looking on more detail at how they can support the social economy.
Nomenclature
Entitled The impact of social economy at the local and regional level, the 50-page report first of all clarifies in some detail what the difference between the social economy and social enterprise is. While many social economy organisations are not businesses, and some social enterprises are not democratic, there are plenty that are both. These are ‘social economy enterprises’, and are shown at the intersection between CMAFs and social enterprises in this diagram:
Fewer than half of EU countries have a firm legal definition of the social economy
One factor that holds back the growth of social economy enterprises is an inadequate legal framework. This is largely a national responsibility, although in countries like Spain the regions can also legislate for themselves in this area. The study draws on the 2020 EU mapping study prepared by Euricse and EMES and its country reports to clarify where the best legal frameworks in Europe are.
It finds that only 12 countries have created broad legal frameworks for the social economy as a whole, of which 6 (BE, FR, EL, ES, IT and PT) are systematic, and a further 6 (or since Brexit now 5) have ad hoc systems, patchworks of laws which nevertheless permit the social economy to flourish (these are DK, FI, PL, SI, SK and UK).
A larger number of countries, 18, have legally binding legal definitions of social enterprise. While 13 of these (BE, BG, DK, FR, EL, ES, IT, LV, PT, RO, SI, SK, UK) allow for all types of social enterprise, 5 (CZ, FI, HR, LT, PL) have only defined work integration social enterprises (WISEs). This is understandable given that inclusive employment is so important, but it a missed opportunity.
Social economy enterprises in countries such as DE, NL and SE might flourish much better if the legal systems were updated.
The best support strategies work through partnership
“LRAs can play a decisive role in scaling up the social economy in their territory, and this can be done in a number of ways, the report says. It set out the best sort of support regions and localities can give, stressing that the best strategies to establish a supportive ecosystem are firmly based on partnership with the sector’s federal organisations. The ecosystem needs to include not only political acknowledgement but access to markets, support for business development, mutual support networks, access to finance, and research, education & skills development.
A score of examples of successful support mechanisms cover issues such as strategies and pacts, social services of general interest, socially responsible public procurement, start-up grants, incubators and social economy schools.
The 12 countries where local and regional authorities have the best track record in supporting social enterprises are AT, BE, CZ, DE, FR, ES, IE, IT, LU, NL, PT and SE. Let us hope that regions and localities throughout Europe pick up this baton and run with it.
Download the report at: https://cor.europa.eu/en/engage/studies/Documents/Impact-of-social-economy.pdf
Zooming can be fun, as well as more democratic 9 May 2020
Posted by cooperatoby in EU.Tags: AEIDL, ESF, social media
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I’ve just taken part in AEIDL’s first online AGM, and I have to say it worked very well. We used Zoom, of course, with the added polling feature. As far as I can see, surprisingly it made the meeting more, not less democratic.
First, it made our democracy more accessible: people attended who normally cannot, and we had 24 of our 31 members there. This is probably a result of it being so much quicker (2 hours) and cheaper, as there are no travelling and no travelling expenses.
Secondly, the discussion was more organised: there was very little interruption – most members muted themselves by default, and you can ‘put your hand up’ on the screen if you want to speak. At the same time the chat feature allows you to comment in real time when the oral debate continues. During our AGM, 4 big ideas cropped up, which Luca harvested and reported back on at the end. In this way, I think it actually increased interactivity, by allowing us to intervene more often, but without having to interrupt the current speaker. In a physical meeting, you have to postpone your comment, and by that time the moment has often passed. In future we could use breakout rooms, to allow small groups to discuss an issue in parallel.
Quick votes
We found the polling feature worked very well when we had to vote: it was more-or-less instantaneous as well as being transparent (though anonymous), with the result clearly displayed as a percentage bar-graph of yesses, nos and abstentions.
On the negative side, you undoubtedly lose the excitement of having a day out of the office, foreign travel, meeting people socially, eating together, and serendipitous learning and ideas.
And our success relied on meticulous preparation (thanks Jean). Even with the agenda and slides on the shared screen, participants have to take care to download and study the necessary documents beforehand.
Handbook
When the ESF Transnational Platform (RIP) started up, both we and the Commission expected online meeting to be popular. But this never happened, with fewer than 10% of Thematic Network meetings taking this format. In retrospect this was a great shame, as it could have increased the breadth of participation and learning. If it’s any help, we published a guide setting out some guidelines and handy formats for meetings and webinars.
For me, the whole experience went so well that I am minded to propose that we hold virtual general meetings more frequently.
Amazon-offsetting – how about a 1.5% self-levy? 20 November 2019
Posted by cooperatoby in EU.Tags: economics, EU
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One of my friends just told me she buys a lot of stuff from Amazon, but feels guulty about it because they pay so little tax. The growth of online shopping is causing our high-street shops to close and our city centres to die. This has just come up as an election issue in Britain, with city-centre retailers complaining they pay higher business rates than out-of-town warehouses. As well as urban liveability and inclusive access, there is also an environmental issue as shopping and deliveries switch to fleets of vans, but it’s difficult to estimate the net effect.
We can however do something about the tax shortfall. In 2016 and 2017, Amazon made sales of €46,500m in the EU, and paid a measly €71.5m in tax, which is 0.15% of sales. Given that the top 20 FTSE companies make 8% of net income on sales, then we can estimate Amazon’s ‘hidden’ profit at €3,720m. The €71.5m they paid amounts to about 1.9% of profit. If they had paid (for example) UK corporation tax of 19% on that, it would be €707m.
If we buy something worth €100, Amazon might be thought to have made a profit of €8. They ‘ought’ to pay corporation tax of €1.52, but have actually been paying €0.15. There is a shortfall of €1.37 on each €100 of what we buy.
So if we wanted to make up for that, we could simply impose a levy on ourselves, offsetting the damage in the way we do with carbon dioxide, and pay the €1.37 direct to the tax authorities. It’s letting Amazon off the hook, but until the EU tackles tax evasion seriously, it might satisfy our consciences.
NB This post was amended on 21 Nov thanks to a correction from Michiel de Jong. I had miscalculated the tax shortfall as €1.51 rather than €1.37 per €100 of purchases.
Walk-on part 14 April 2019
Posted by cooperatoby in EU.Tags: Brussels, EU
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Toby at Pro Europa rally 10 Apr 19
The occasion was a Pro Europa rally chaired by Nick Crosby and featuring speeches by Gina Miller (by video), Richard Corbett and Molly Scott-Cato among others. It cheered me up no end: Brexit has run out of road, the momentum is with us, pro-Europeans are mobilised as never before, and we are going to win the coming European elections!
Toby at tipp(l)ing point 