Micro entrepreneurship and associations in developing peripheral countries

The presentation addresses the conditions of small entrepreneurs and associative groups’ emergence and the requirements for its implementation, grounded simultaneously in solidarity and efficiency. The data were generated under  the international cooperation project Micro entrepreneurship and Associations in Developing Peripheral Countries, carried out by three institutions in Brazil, Portugal and Africa. Empirical research in Brazil was based on visits to associative enterprises in rural and urban areas of the Rio Grande do Sul State. These economic organizations are characterized by collective format, small size and their importance in creating alternative production systems. Their institutional forms are presented as small, formal or informal associations and popular cooperatives. The enterprises surveyed were: three of the collection and sorting of recyclable waste (urban solid waste) segment, three of the rural segment and two of the microenterprise segment.

The concept of entrepreneurship entails the ability on leading the organization and management of productive, human and material factors of the enterprises towards achieving their goals. The solidarity economic enterprises, even with all the investment risks and with the conventional forms of production, are guided by the logic of self-management and associated work and the principle of building a solidary and sustainable society. It can be argued that the link between associative entrepreneurship and the Solidarity Economy is the role of the people in poverty in conducting an economic activity.  Despite the specificities of each segment, the challenges to be overcome include the dependence on varying degrees of public funders and of the civil society training organizations. The difficulties arise from the disruption of public policy, conceived as government policies, and from the lack of adequacy of technical advice and of the resources to the Solidarity Economic entrepreneurs’ reality.