Experts on co-operative statistics met at the ILO’s headquarters in Geneva on 11-12 May to discuss a proposed conceptual framework for measuring co-operatives, and to suggest steps towards its practical implementation at the country level.
The meeting built on previous work by the Technical Working Group (TWG) on Co-operative Statistics of the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Co-operatives (COPAC), of which the Alliance is a member.
Participants included representatives of National Statistical Offices of the Republic of Korea and Iran, as well as other producers and users of co-operative statistics from Tanzania, the Philippines, Italy, France, Costa Rica, Canada, and the USA. Sonja Novkovic, chair of the Alliance Committee on Co-operative Research; Gretchen Hacquard, Alliance director of membership; and Hyungsik Eum, data analyst for CICOPA, helped represent the Alliance as participants.
The TWG placed a particular emphasis on contributing to the discussion of co-operative statistics at the 20th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in October 2018.
The next ICLS conference will discuss the issue of statistics on co-operatives in detail for the first time in its history. The TWG will provide technical contributions to inform and guide that discussion.
The Technical Working Group also examined a framework developed by Professor Marie J. Bouchard and her team from the Université de Québec à Montréal. The conceptual framework reviews the most important statistical studies on co-operatives, analyses concepts and methodologies for identifying and classifying co-operatives, and proposes options for defining and classifying co-operatives for statistical purposes.
Speaking at the event, Vic Van Vuuren, the Director of the ILO’s Enterprises Department and the chair of COPAC said that the driving purpose of improving statistics on cooperatives to improve the lives of people suffering from poverty and inequality by helping cooperatives reach their full potential.
For more information about the meeting, visit the COPAC website or the ILO’s Statistics on Co-operatives page.
Photo: participants attending the meeting in Geneva
