Advancing statistics on cooperatives: Reflections on six country case studies

In recent times, both researchers and policymakers have identified the need to develop statistics on cooperatives that can be compared at the international level. This need has also been discussed at the 19th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) held in Geneva in October 2013, which recognized the importance of having more comprehensive and internationally comparable statistics on cooperatives by adopting a resolution for advancing work on the topic (International Labour Organisation [ILO], 2013). This paper summarizes the main results of the project “Terms of References for National Practices in Developing Statistics on Cooperatives” that is part of the series of initiatives undertaken by the ILO to better understand how data on cooperatives are collected and realised across the world. The project aimed at deepening the data collection methodologies and understanding the data collection process and the role of the institutions involved, the sources of data and the definitions, questions sets, classification schemes, methods and tools applied to collect and analyse data on cooperatives in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Philippines, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom. The paper presents a synthesis of these country practices putting them into a common framework with proposals for a definition of cooperatives, as well as recommendations for a classification system and methods to release statistics on cooperatives.