In Manila, from 16th to 20th October 2007, the conference of the first Asian Forum for Solidarity Economy was held at University of the Philippines. 600 delegates from all over the Philippines and 100 from other Asia and rest of the world gathered from 26 countries. Meeting was chaired by Dr. Cielito Habito, former Minister of Economic Planning (NEDA) and currently Professor of Economics in Ateneo de Manila University and Mr. John Samuel of the Action Aid Asia.

Ben Quinones, who hosted the Asian Forum, has undergone a very unique way of preparatory process in the Philippines. Instead of usual process of calling all the representatives of practitioners of solidarity economy such as NGOs engaging in fair trade, micro credit, social money, grass-root enterprises, etc., he initiated to create the Bayanihan Banking Window (BBW), which is a banking facility to link socially responsible investors (SRI) with socially responsible enterprises (SRE). The term, Bayanihan is a local word, meaning solidarity and cooperation.

Philippine economy consists of only foreign transnational corporations and comprador capitalists like Ayala conglomerate whose owner has double nationalities of the Philippine and US. There are few national capitals or small and medium capitals. To my knowledge, an organization such as the BBW is very necessary in the Philippines.

The forum has not been an organization. Instead it is a space where committed people in solidarity economy exchange experiences and debates. There is no formal board or Council. According to Ben Quinones, “in future, when solidarity economy practitioners feel it necessary to create an organization, then we will set up an organization”.

Following 4 topics were discussed during 4 days meeting.

1. Socially responsible Investment (SRI) focusing around the Bayanihan Banking Window.
2. Socially responsible Finance (SRF) focusing around micro-credits
3. Socially responsible enterprise (SRE) focusing around fair trade
4. Governance focusing around the Charter of Human Responsibility, and presened by the Alliance for Responsible, Plural and United World.
   

There were additional special sessions on Japan and Nepal.

The Japanese delegation consisted of 11 people proposed to host the 2nd meeting in Japan in 2009 and will follow similar process of Ben’s. And PARC (Pacific Asia Resource Center, Japan) will be responsible in working as contact point, and in mapping to identify solidarity economy in Korea, China, Mongolia, HK, Taiwan whose representations at the Manila meeting were none or weak.

According to John Samuel, in 2011, India might host the 3rd Forum so as to empower solidarity economy movement in South Asia region.

In last March, PARC organized a study forum on solidarity economy and once a month, we have been mapping the elements of solidarity economies at home. Traditionally there exist large scale consumer’s cooperatives, with membership of 20 millions, farmer’s cooperatives with 4 millions, and various types of mutual insurance. But we have found that female farmers created more than 3000 small scale enterprises by themselves all over Japan, handicapped people set up their own non-profit enterprises, nurseries, group-home for aged people, small shop owners associations, and other type of non-profit legal persons.

We will mobilize all those elements of solidarity economy organizations into a forum.