Social solidarity economy (SSE) concept has gained attention in Japanese civil society these days. Concerning the introduction of SSE concept to Japan, there are some contexts as follows. (1) Looking for alternative economies in the anti-globalism movement, (2) the emergence of community co-operatives, (3) the orientation of "re-mutualization" against "de-mutualization" of Japanese mainstream co-operatives, (4) building inclusive local economy to tackle with social exclusion and poverty problems, (5) the differentiation from the neoliberal thought of social enterprise. When we consider SSE concept from perspective of Karl Polanyi’s economic theory, we can understand (1) SSE mainly develops in the fields of fictitious commodities, (2) SSE needs transparent democratic governance, (3) SSE needs to pursue public interests rather than closed economic interests.

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As micro-finance program is expanding, NGOs which fundamentally aim to support people’s whole life tend to focus on finance business because it is an important source of NGOs’ funds. The purpose of this study is to reveal the changes of NGO users’ recognition of NGO itself under this conditions. The result shows people who started micro-finance at early stage regard NGOs as important supporters for their lives, while users who began using financial programs after 2000 recognize NGOs as consumer credit institutions. It would be necessary for local NGOs to give detail information on their whole activities in order local people to understand the NGOs.

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In Sweden, there had been an umbrella structure of strong federations and small affiliated co- operatives, characterized parts of state system. With EU accession of Sweden, the structure and character are changing. Federations of co-operatives were dissolved, and a transnational in dairy and an international co-operative in cereal sector were appeared. In meats sector, four regional co- operatives merged one national co-operative, however, acquired by a Finnish co-operative owned company, now remaining a meats farmers organization, which held some shares of a joint-stock company together with a Finnish co-operative. This paper presents the transnationalization, internationalization and demutualization of co- operatives in Sweden after EU accession.

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The object of this paper is to clarify the role of the activities by a voluntary study group of progressive farmers in the adoption of new technologies in a local region by analyzing the approach of Toyako Agricultural Cooperative promoting environmentally-sound agriculture(called “Clean Agriculture”)and GLOBALG.A.P. In this case, a small number of farmers using advanced techniques had been conducting Clean Agriculture with high regard for quality as a new technology. Based on their efforts, they convinced the existing cooperative’s advisory service and farmers’ production group, who had sold products graded only by quantity, to change to grading products by quality. As a result of adopting this new technology, the struggling cooperative’s business recovered. Thus, it was clarified that a voluntary study group has possibilities to change the way of thinking of existing organizations and to play an important role for adopting new technologies in a local context.

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