ABSTRACT
The social solidarity movement in Asia is a recent movement with roots in traditional community development and self-help initiatives involving cooperatives, micro-credit and micro-finance institutions, and fair trade initiatives. Innovative approaches are being applied in practice across Asia through concrete community-based actions for creating an alternative economy. This chapter presents three innovative examples of social economy. They are Asian examples from Indonesia, India, and the Philippines. In India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, rural development policies have been implemented for establishing a civil society and enabling community participation, especially through the strengthening of grassroots democracy. In addition, the hegemonic sphere of development dominated by a political-bureaucratic-business world must be broken by the majority of people for the common good. The work by Rosa Mercado the Philippines and the Center for Labor and Grassroots Initiatives provides a strong link between the solidarity economy and cooperative experiences, including the link between the solidarity economy and trade union movements.
