Based on a case study of the General Union of Farming and Cattle-Raising Cooperatives of Maputo (UGC), in which economic and social forms meet and interact, this chapter examines the possibility of establishing alternatives for production in which the space created for democratic participation and for access and control of economic and social resources opens the way to a corresponding access to several forms of power and to a change in gender relations. The question is whether the UGC project can stand as a viable and valid alternative in the context of an open economy.

Within the framework that characterized the emergence and development of the UGC, the search for solutions for its problems helped to find alternative forms of production, first, as a response to the socialization strategies of the field introduced after national independence by FRELIMO (1975), in whose global strategy cooperativization played a vital role; and second, in order to find a new answer to the introduction of neoliberal policies in Mozambique and the consequent market hegemony.

Hegemonic forms invariably produce alternative responses which are not exclusively economic, but which can present a social dimension. It was precisely in this area that the UGC managed to achieve forms of social inclusion, particularly in the case of women. Thus, the history of the UGC shows how it was possible to construct a path that gave its members the role of subjects in a transformation. Democratic forms of management and decision-making, by women peasants, were the lever that determined that transformation and that permitted the construction of a solidary knowledge. In order for the economic alternatives of this project to remain viable and maintain the wealth of social alternatives, the UGC will have to see through its planned projects, modernize its cooperatives and production units-in order to become competitive at national and international levels-and create systems so that its very different initiatives rapidly become self-sustaining. Since the State has not shown any signs of support for this kind of undertaking, neither at the local nor national level, the General Union of Cooperatives will have to reinforce its cooperatives and production units, on whose initiative their development depends.