The Africa We Want

The YSI workshop will bring young scholars together to discuss new ways of thinking on cooperatives and other SSE organizations’ potential for SDGs realization and survival strategies to short-term and long-term shocks, as was the case with the Covid-19 pandemic. The event will also facilitate the exchange of knowledge and ideas among youth, promote networking among them and other professionals in the field of co-operatives, and also strengthen youth participation in the debates on cooperative development.

Growing inequalities, social challenges, and environmental imperatives are at the top of political agendas. In this context, the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) has emerged as a key lever for building more inclusive and sustainable economies and societies (OECD, 2021).

The objective of shared prosperity is at the center of the 2063 Agenda for Africa, “The Africa We Want”. Leaving no one behind entails that societies must address the problem of poverty. Cooperatives contribute to poverty alleviation in many important ways, including by identifying and providing economic opportunities for their members; empowering the disadvantaged to participate equally in all aspects of cooperative affairs and society at large, defending their interests; providing security to people living in poverty by allowing them to convert individual risks into collective risks; and mediating member access to assets that they utilize to earn a living (United Nations, 2017).

Before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, 40% of the Sub-Saharan African population was already living in poverty due to limited progress from high levels over the past decades (World Bank, 2018). Cooperatives, among other social and economic organizations, have been greatly affected, distorting their operations and viability, and as such Africa is now on its deathbed. Under these circumstances, there is a need to assess the resilience of cooperative movement and other SSE organizations and their potential to contribute to poverty alleviation and the full realization of SDGs post-Covid-19 crisis.
In order to discuss those new ways of thinking about cooperatives and SSEOs potential, the YSI round-table session will start in the format of a round-table with six young scholars from the African continent to open up into a fishbowl discussion to ensure maximum participation and engagement of the audience. The structure of fishbowl discussions allows audience members to take up a seat at the round table to become part of the conversation in a more natural and engaging way than in Q&A formats.