ILO holds an orientation session on the Guidelines concerning Statistics of Cooperatives

During the two day orientation session, organized by ILO COOP/SSE Unit and the STATISTICS Department, ILO staff, partners and representatives from national advisory committees for the five country case studies discussed the best way forward in implementing the initiative on statistics of cooperatives.

News | 20 June 2022
The Orientation session around the ILO initiative on the Guidelines concerning Statistics of Cooperatives took place virtually on 16 and 19 May 2022 using video conferencing facilities. The participants included the national consultants and some members of the national advisory committees (NAC) for the case studies being conducted in five target countries (Costa Rica, Italy, the Republic of Korea, Tanzania and Turkey). Staff from the ILO Cooperatives Unit and the ILO Department of Statistics, and international experts on statistics of cooperatives also participated in the session.

The session was opened by Ms Simel Esim, the Manager of the ILO’s Cooperatives, Social and Solidarity Economy Unit in the Enterprises Department. She welcomed the participants and stressed the importance of the national case studies as a step towards developing methods to implement the Guidelines concerning statistics of cooperatives at the national level. The case studies will provide the information needed to allow the ILO to develop concrete guidance on the collection and compilation of statistics of cooperatives aligned with the Guidelines, she noted The case studies would also play an important role in evaluating the Guidelines and identifying issues that needed to be addressed.

Professor Marie Bouchard from the University of Quebec in Montreal and the President of the CIRIEC International Scientific Commission on Social and Cooperative Economy presented background information on the development of the Guidelines to address the need for internationally comparable statistics on cooperatives. Mr Hyungsik Eum, Strategy and statistics coordinator of the International Cooperative Alliance presented information on key lessons learnt from previous country studies.

Mr David Hunter, a consultant and former senior statistician at the ILO Department of Statistics, gave a series of presentations followed by discussions aimed at explaining the Guidelines, their application at national level, and the research needed to produce the national reports. On the first day, the discussion covered the way the Guidelines aimed to meet the need for statistics on cooperatives, the nature of the statistics and information needed, the concepts defined, and the steps required to put the Guidelines into practice.

After the orientation session, the national advisory committees (NACs) in each country will be established in coordination between the ILO headquarters & field offices and corresponding national institutions. Kick-off sessions of NACs will take place from late June to early July 2022. The global advisory committee (GAC) of the project will also be launched in September 2022. The final outputs/reports of the initiative will be presented on the International Cooperatives’ Day in each country in July 2023 and will be discussed at the 21st International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in October 2023.