ILO participates in a research workshop of UN Task Force on SSE on statistics

Officials of the ILO participated in a workshop on SSE statistics to present the Guidelines concerning Statistics of Cooperatives which was adopted in 20th ICLS in 2018 and approved at ILO GB in March 2019.

Noticia | 26 de noviembre de 2019
Participants at the conference.
The workshop was part of the research project on ‘Opportunities and Challenges of Statistics on Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE)’, funded by Statistics Korea, under the SSE Knowledge Hub for the SDGs. The Knowledge Hub is an initiative of the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on Social and Solidarity Economy (UNTFSSE), chaired by the ILO and implemented by UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD).

Organized by UNRISD for the UNTFSSE, the workshop benefited from contributions from observers to the UNTFSSE, including the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), CIRIEC and Social Economy Europe. The aim of the workshop is to take stock of knowledge on the production of statistics on SSE, identify the limitations and benefits of various methodologies and indicators for SSE, and suggest ways to move forward.

Participants shared experiences and knowledge around SSE and its measurement. Marie Bouchard, the president of CIRIEC International Scientific Commission on social and cooperative economy, provided a perspective on the SSE concept and pertaining research issues. Rafael Chaves, a professor in University of Valencia (Spain) and CIRIEC-Spain and member of GECES, presented lessons from experiences and recent evolutions in producing statistics on SSE in the EU. Ana Cristina Ramos from Statistics Portugal shared the experience of her country on producing Social Economy statistics using the satellite account method. Patrick Klein, Social Economy Team Leader under the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (GROW) Directorate-General at European Commission presented the project that focuses on producing Third or Social Economy sector satellite accounts in Europe.

ILO officials, Young Hyun Kim from the COOP Unit in the Enterprises Department and Manpreet Singh from the Statistics Department, presented the guidelines concerning statistics of cooperatives to inform the work on SSE statistics. They elaborated on the process undertaken leading to the adoption of the international guidelines concerning statistics of cooperatives. They also provided some recommendations on producing relevant statistics and the future work, which the ILO is planning to undertake in collaboration with members of the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC).

As part of the general conversation relating to SEE, the 2018 UN handbook titled ‘Satellite Account on Non-profit and Related Institutions and Volunteer Work’ was also discussed. The handbook is promoted as a good tool for measuring non-profit institutions, but it does however fail to capture all social economy organizations. At the strategy meeting for the project among selected participants which was held the next day, participants deliberated in more detail around the UN handbook and the next steps. The result of the workshop and strategy meeting was shared among UN Task Force on SSE members and observers during the Task Force retreat which took place in Trento (Italy) from 20 to 22 November 2019.