With a large participation of representatives of community tourism enterprises registered with the Decentralized Autonomous Government of the province of Pichincha, our office in Ecuador held a training session on Cooperativism.

This activity was framed within the framework of the inter-institutional cooperation agreement signed between Rimisp and the Prefectura de Pichincha for the elaboration of strategies, capacity building of local actors and the for the elaboration of strategies, capacity building of local actors and the valuation of enterprises and projects of communities and community tourism associations, located in this jurisdiction.

The French expert Christian Marlin was in charge of imparting knowledge on Cooperativism, which was distributed in three interventions and also counted with the interventions of the attendees, located in various cantons of the province.

The Director of Rimisp in Ecuador, Carol Chehab, highlighted the importance of promoting knowledge on this topic, in order to “support entrepreneurs, analyze national and international experiences, as well as lessons learned and their replicability in the local context”.

On his side, Byron Diaz, from the Prefecture of Pichincha, highlighted the link between the provincial government and Rimisp, in order to strengthen the initiatives of the community tourism associations.

The conference began with a general presentation on the history of cooperatives and their presence in the world. “They currently contribute 10% of employment worldwide,” said Christian Marlin. Globally there are about 3 million cooperatives, with 1,217 members.

The second part of the presentation focused on the reality of cooperatives in Ecuador. According to the data presented, there are about 17 thousand organizations that make up the Popular and Solidarity Economy (EPS) sector. Agricultural activities are the ones that register the largest number of these groups, with five thousand registered associations and only 240 cooperatives.

During the last segment of the presentation, the values and principles of cooperativism were presented. The need to promote a cooperative culture, the incentive of human and professional capacities for the management of cooperative enterprises and the support to the capitalization of cooperatives, from the public policy point of view, were also discussed.

The participants expressed some concerns about aspects that could improve their tourism ventures. The need for a coordinated work between the public institutions that regulate the associations and the Ministry of Tourism, in order to achieve articulated tasks, duties and rights, to optimize the efforts of the enterprises and the control institutions, was one of the most mentioned aspects.

Attendees will receive a certificate of participation to this training day promoted by Rimisp and the Prefecture of Pichincha.