Republican News · Thursday 13 February 1997

[An Phoblacht]

Putting People First

Sinn Féin's discussion document, Putting People First, on the role of the community in economic development was debated and dissected by party members and invited guests from the voluntary and governmental sectors last weekend. Below we carry an edited extract.

The right to local control

Communities throughout Ireland experience extensive economic and social deprivation. They alone cannot overcome this but they must play a central role in helping to plan and implement the regeneration of their own neighbourhoods.
 
The social economy draws out a vital distinction between private profit and interest and commercial viability and collective self help.

Community economic regeneration is a key process for ensuring that responses to disadvantage are community-led, strategically driven and correspond directly to local social need. Sinn Féin believes it is essential that future planning at the local and national levels can no longer be achieved without community participation from beginning to end.

Partnership

Strategic partnerships between communities and public sector agencies are needed for successful local regeneration. Such strategies need to have the following principles enshrined:

  • Democratic Consultation;
  • Transparency;
  • Accountability;
  • Equal Participation.

Sinn Féin believes community economic regeneration and the partnership concept can offer considerable positive economic change if it is inclusive.

The social economy

By promoting the social economy local communities can begin to develop practical solutions in the shape of sustainable regeneration strategies. In recent years Ireland has witnessed the emergence of many community-based regeneration initiatives. Collectively they represent a new departure in progressive economic development. Sinn Féin believes this flourishing innovation within local communities represents a new third sector which will ultimately position the social economy alongside the public and private sectors.

Redefining economic needs

The social economy realigns local economic development with a community development perspective. It places people's needs at the centre of regeneration. This allows communities in partnership to redefine enterprise and employment as needing also to be socially productive. Local activity within the social economy reveals the potential for dynamic innovation.

Local regeneration activity is invariably integrated. Examples include:

  • Impacting on local environmental and ecological concerns whilst developing job creation through recycling enterprises;
  • Redressing low skills attainment within communities by developing training programmes linked directly into new multi media technology;
  • Providing appropriate local childcare services which simultaneously creates employment, and allow parents to pursue opportunities to access education, training or enter employment themselves.

The social economy model is applicable to all communities whether urban, rural, fishing. Sinn Féin identifies its potential to develop on a national basis. Good examples which have come to the fore in recent years include local regeneration in communities throughout North and West Belfast; Bogside and Creggan in Derry; and Tyrone. In the 26 Counties we have witnessed a revival in the credit union movement along with the emergence of thriving local currency networks. Other positive factors have been the increasing number of new local development associations particularly in western regions as well as urban settings throughout the state.

Implications of the Social Economy

The importance of the social economy for broader economic policy is multifaceted in its impact upon community-based initiatives.

  • Firstly, it is a process based on a people-centred perspective and sustainable economic activity and job creation.
  • Secondly, the social economy stimulates an innovative approach to developing local enterprise.
  • Thirdly, it demonstrates that local development and democratic practices are not only complimentary but co-dependent.
  • Fourthly, social economy activity can facilitate practical cross community co-operation between nationalists and unionists in the Six Counties and highlights the potential for co-operation on issues of mutual economic concern.
  • Lastly, the social economy creates a structured interface, between local community economic regeneration and the responsibility of the private and public sectors. It also establishes key democratic principles for the advancement of all future economic development planning and activity throughout Ireland.

Outcomes of the social economy

Sinn Féin is convinced that the social economy has an enormously important role to play in the regeneration of communities and their neighbourhoods in terms of:

  1. Establishing sustainable local economic and social infrastructures;
  2. Setting in place essential building blocks for the eventual construction of a democratic island based economy.

A national forum should be appointed to inform the development of an island based social economy strategy. This should address the potential of community enterprise banking
Social economy activity can facilitate practical cross community co-operation between nationalists and unionists in the Six Counties
 
facilities and the function of social capital in supporting local communities development activities.

Similar consideration should be devoted to research, development and training in the social economy field as is directed into conventional economic activity and preparing communities for private or foreign investment.

We believe the concept of the peace dividend, particularly relating to US investment and the IFI expenditure must be realigned in support of authentic community regeneration strategies.

At local level the private sector, local government and public bodies must become more pro-actively concerned with the development of strategic partnerships with communities and the social economy.

Sinn Féin believes that through a synergy between the social economy's innovation, the public and private sector and foreign investment, new pioneering development strategies can be implemented to bring about a sustainable future for Ireland's urban, rural and fishing communities.

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