Dear Forum Members:

We would like to invite you to the following Consumer Co-operative Institute of Japan (CCIJ) symposium:

"The Role of Cooperatives in Welfare Service Provision:
a co-production and co-governance perspective"

Speaker: Dr. Victor Pestoff,
Institute for Civil Society Studies, Ersta Skondal University College (Stockholm, Sweden)

Time and Date: 14:00 - 16:30, April 18 (Wed.), 2012
Venue: Hibiya Convention Hall, Chiyoda ward Hibiya Library (B1F)
Language: English with consecutive interpretation
Admission: Free for CCIJ members, \1,000 for the general public Access (in Japanese):
http://hibiyal.jp/hibiya/access.html

Synopsis:
Social services for individuals, such as health care, nursing care and education, entail a peculiar relationship between service providers and their clients. This is because the services are produced and consumed simultaneously. When information and knowledge gaps exist between service providers and their clients, the latter (consumers) are disadvantaged. Instead of this one-way service provision by service providers, cooperatives can be a mechanism of co-production that improves the quality of services via cooperation between service providers and their clients.
Co-governance helps to facilitate this co-production.
Dr. Pestoff has advocated a "triangle of welfare service provision" consisting of the state, for-profit firms, and third sector actors (co-ops and NPOs etc.).
He has developed a theory of co-production based on the role of cooperatives in Sweden's childcare service provision.

* Victor A. Pestoff is Professor Emeritus in Political Science and currently Guest Professor at the Institute for Civil Society Studies at Ersta Skondal University College in Stockholm (Sweden). His current research interests focus on citizen participation and co-production of welfare services and their implications for the (re-) democratization of the welfare state.

* Advance registration is not required, but certainly appreciated (ccij[at]jccu.coop).

* The Consumer Co-operatives Institute of Japan (CCIJ) was established in 1989 in order to found a permanent research base for studies on people's everyday lives and cooperatives. It aims at contributing to the promotion of consumers' interests and improvement of the quality of life through various activities such as research and education.

The Consumer Co-operative Institute of Japan(CCIJ) 6th floor, Plaza F
15 Rokubancho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
102-0085
TEL: 03-5216-6025 FAX: 03-5216-6030
E-mail: ccij[at]jccu.coop