Coordinator of the Committee for the promotion and advancement of cooperatives (COPAC), Ms Fran McCrae visited the ILO on 20 June 2016 to meet with ILO COOP and ILO Statistics to discuss joint activities. ILO will assume the Chair of COPAC in the spring of 2017, and the visit afforded the opportunity to prepare for the transition.

ILO COOP and Ms McCrae met with Hakki Ozel and Regina Galhardi of ILO Statistics to discuss the process for the 20th International Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) in 2018 and how the COPAC technical working group on cooperative statistics can participate. ILO Statistics and ILO COOP also shared progress on additional mapping studies on how cooperative statistics are generated in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Philippines, Russia and the United Kingdom, as well as on work to move towards operational and statistical definitions of cooperative concepts.

Ms. McCrae then presented COPAC, its history, and its current activities to the ILO COOP team. The team discussed the ILO’s future role as COPAC Chair and how the Coordinator will administer the secretariat activities under ILO leadership.