Building Community-Centred Economies: Lessons from Around the World

Deborah FryIACD

About IACD

• Global network of community development practitioners and activists from over 54 countries.

• Face-to-face events (annual global conferences, regional events)

• Local groups• Online networking (www.iacdglobal.org)

2009 Building Community-Centred Economies Conference

• 2009 Conference held in June in Brisbane, Australia

• Over 450 participants• Many, many stories of communities tackling

these issues.• All conference papers available at: http://www.cdconference.com.au/

Community Economic Development

• People working together to harness local resources, through which they can: – meet their needs in secure and sustainable ways;– foster the well-being of people and their

environments; and– enable people to affect and shape their futures.

Why Community-Centred Economies?

• Reduce distance between production and consumption. • Development of closer relations between producers and

consumers. • Sense of responsibility for waste. • Minimise potential for exploitation. • Valuing diversity, gender and ecology. • Relationship, connectedness and meeting real needs.

(Hawthorne, 2009)

Learning Together as We Go: Australia• Local Living Economy in Queensland• What is a Local Living Economy (LLE)? LLE is about

economic power residing within local communities: – LLEs locally produce and exchange as many products &

services as they practically can – LLEs support, encourage & promote local ownership of

SMEs

Local Living Economies

– LLE consumers appreciate the benefits of buying locally, creating local jobs & keeping money earned & spent in the local community

– LLE businesses source products locally wherever possible

• Food is an excellent entry point for LLE• They are all based on relationships between

people and place

Southeast Queensland LLE Network• Cross-boundary and Cross-sectoral • Informal network built on personal relationships and common

understandings • Logan City Council, Gold Coast City Council, Scenic Rim Regional

Council • Tourism sector, Indigenous People, Not For Profit, Small

Businesses, social enterprise• Aim to put LLE on the policy table as a valid approach to

economic development • Aim to leverage pilot projects and existing initiatives in LLE

At the Individual Level—Community Theatre

Freire’s critical literacy process applied to the money system

• Becoming financially literate is a political act • Teachers and students are both experts • See money system as socially constructed, able to be changed • Familiar financial realities in an unfamiliar form (‘codifications’) • Analysing deep structure of codifications creates new understanding• Real dialogue, shared knowledge, is essential

Freire cont.

• Uncover ‘generative concepts’ (concepts with emotional power and leverage to change how people see their world)

• Generative concepts analysed and used to create new concepts

• This leads to a new consciousness of ability to act on the world

Many more stories…• Workers food co-ops in Ecuador• Case Study of a Worker-Owned Homecare Co-operative

in the United States• Building sustainable livelihoods through women’s

empowerment in • Thriving Economies in Desert Australia: Challenges,

Opportunities and ConstraintsDownload presentations and digital story clips at:

www.cdconference.com.au

Buzz Words• Local, Local, Local– Local food economies– Local living economy (LLE)– Local businesses– Place-based

• Build on and develop community assets (you can’t have a local economy without a local community)

What About Scotland?• Is ‘localism’ a concept that resonates in

Scotland?• What about asset-based community

development?• What are the current debates around these

issues? Where do you stand?• What do you think is the most important thing

that needs to happen to move towards a community-centred economy in Scotland?