In 2007 Cuba launched a bold effort to develop a new non state sector of the economy centered on cooperatives. While there had long been cooperatives in agriculture, these were the first in urban areas. It was expected that Cuba would become the first basically cooperative society in the world. However, things do not go as expected.
Camila Piñeiro Harnecker will analyze what happened and where the cooperative movement is today. She is the leading authority on the subject, having published Cooperatives and Socialism: A View from Cuba (Palgrave 2013) and Repensando: El socialism Cubano – Propuestas para una economia democratica y cooperative (Ruth Casa Editorial 2013). She is a professor in the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy at the University of Havana.