ARGENTINA: Building a Solidarity Economy: "Social economy initiatives find innovative ways of meeting people's needs, give participants experience in organising, and in some cases question key aspects of the current economic model, by putting the means of production in the hands of workers, for example. The CTA and other institutions are attempting to create mechanisms and tools for providing technical assistance, training and support for solidarity economy projects, while providing advice for setting up trade and cooperative networks. Working alongside the CTA in this effort are the universities of Buenos Aires, La Plata and General Sarmiento, the Instituto Movilizador de Fondos Cooperativos, the Federaci�n Agraria Argentina, the Centro Nueva Tierra, the local committee of the World Social Forum and a large number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These organisations are also helping the left-leaning government of N�stor Kirchner to draw up work-fare schemes for the unemployed. In addition, they are backing workers in recuperated factories in their struggle to obtain support from the public and private sectors. But the overall aim of these organisations is to create links between the myriad initiatives, to help them avoid isolation and to bring them together in a unified political and social project. So far, more than 20 productive and service endeavours in Greater Buenos Aires have provided information on their experiences, in order to set up a databank to create links and facilitate communication. For the CTA, it is essential to forge a space in the IEF for offering training and technical advice to the various projects, and to help facilitate networking and exchange among themselves. One key challenge is to identify obstacles to the social economy, which usually"
