Inequalities persist in many counties. We can, in particular, observe a worrying feminization of poverty. Women are often those most affected by socio-economic decline and the effects of liberalism. Many women, faced with situations characterized by poverty and lack of security, have no choice other than to earn money to ensure their survival and that of their children. But their working conditions are often hard: low pay for tiring work, arduous work, flexibility, unsuitable working hours, and so on. Faced with this situation, women’s groups are mobilizing so that things will change. Women’s associations are developing initiatives to fulfill various fundamental needs: food, housing, eliminating illiteracy, education, contact with others, essential services and care, and services that give people real choice. They create activities that allow them both to earn an income and use the various skills and areas of expertise acquired in difficult living conditions, where you need to use all your energy and strength just to survive. These projects encourage the reinforcement of women’s capabilities and their social and professional emancipation.

The initiatives, grouped together under the term solidarity economy, give dynamic expression to questions linked to health, education, culture and politics in the wider sense of the term. Women’s position and their involvement in the economy bear witness to their dynamism and energy, and their quest for pragmatic and political solutions. In both the North and the South, they play an important role in manufacture and production, but are still very underrepresented in the spheres of decision-making and representation. Their specific contribution is still not sufficiently visible and recognized to allow them to truly act as an agent of social and political transformation. The recognition of their place and role in the construction of alternative models of development is a major challenge. To overcome resistance and play a real role as a social energizer, fostering exchanges and interaction between different cultures, the women in charge of these initiatives have formed networks, sharing their experiences on the national, continental and international level.

By comparing experiences, capitalizing on initiatives, sharing methods and promoting awareness of initiatives we can ensure that representation and practices develop. The local, continental and world Social Forums, Globalization of Solidarity meetings and World March of Women enable links to be established between the actors involved in the different social movements — women’s movements, alternative-globalization movements, social and solidarity economy movements — in order to trigger the process of change. In Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2005, a seminar was co-organized by several organizations, the Workgroup on Solidarity Socio-Economy (WSSE), the International Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy (RIPESS) and the World March of Women, looking at the notion of wealth and gender equality in economy. Women from many different countries are meeting again at Dakar in order to continue with previous debates and ideas and renew groupings and alliances. They will participate collectively in the debate on achieving recognition for women’s specific contribution to alternative methods of producing and of creating an economy. They will take the opportunity to organize several activities based on the issue of gender and the solidarity economy — a forum, seminars, caucus and workshops — so that all the networks concerned can place the question of gender equality at the heart of practices, organizational mechanisms and representation modes..

The process triggered by these different events should encourage all our networks to take on board the gender issue. Recognition of women’s contribution to the notion of wealth and to a fairer, more egalitarian society should promote the development of a responsible, plural and united economy.