Will Ruddick

Founder of the Sarafu Network (formerly Grassroots Economics), a community currency and mutual credit system operating primarily in Kenya. Ruddick’s work demonstrates how alternative economic instruments — specifically community exchange tokens — can enable mutualization and commons-based resource sharing at the local level, outside both state banking systems and corporate financial infrastructure.

The Sarafu Network is a concrete example of functional sovereignty in the economic domain — communities governing their own exchange systems and welfare mechanisms without state approval or corporate intermediaries. Relevant to the Network Nations discussion of how digital tools can enable new forms of self-governing economic communities in the Global South.

Referenced in: Ep 3