COPAC: Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives
Mission & Vision:
The Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives (COPAC) is a multi-stakeholder partnership of global public and private institutions that champions and supports people-centred and self-sustaining cooperative enterprises as leaders in sustainable development.
COPAC’s vision is for the cooperative voice to be heard in all global policy discussions and for every cooperative enterprise to have the resources necessary to realise its development potential.
The members of COPAC are International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), International Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Farmers’ Organisation (WFO).
COPAC work:
To advance their shared mission and vision, the members of COPAC collaborate on the following activity areas:
- Promoting and raising awareness about cooperatives
- Strengthening cooperatives around the world through capacity building
- Participating in policy initiatives that affect cooperatives
- Serving as a resource for cooperative knowledge through information gathering and sharing
MORE INFO OF COPAC HERE
Statistics on cooperatives
Technical working group on Co-operatives’ Statistics chaired by Marie Bouchard (President of the CIRIEC International Scientific Commission on Social and Cooperative Economy, which shares this research topic)
Statistics on cooperatives are essential to quantify the impact of cooperatives on their members and the economy as a whole. Currently reliable and comparable statistics on cooperatives are missing in most countries of the world. The ILO, in collaboration with its constituents and a number of national and international partners, is working towards developing guidelines on the measurement of cooperatives, both in terms of employment and economic value added.
WORKS:
- Conceptual Framework for the Purpose of Measurement of Cooperatives and its Operationalization / International Labour Office
This report developed by Marie J. Bouchard, Madeg Le Guernic and Damien Rousselière presents a general overview of how cooperatives and key concepts are measured for statistical purposes.
Report discussed at the COPAC Technical Working Group on Cooperative Statistics Meeting Geneva, May 2017 / International Labour Office
- On 18th October 2018, the Guidelines concerning Statistics of Cooperatives were adopted at the 20th International Conference of Labour Statisticians.
The delegates from across regions as well as workers’ and employers’ delegates welcomed the draft guidelines and voted for their adoption at the ILO Headquarters in Geneva.
In their comments, the delegates underlined the importance of developing reliable and globally comparable statistics of cooperatives. A number of country representatives also echoed their support for conducting pilot-testing of the guidelines and expressed their willingness to participate in the process.
– Presentation made at the conference is available here
– Revised version of the guidelines is available here
– Documents about statistics on cooperatives country by country are available here
– Interviews with several experts and professors like Sonja Novkovic and Marie Bouchard
– Other document of interest here.
MORE INFO OF THIS WORKING GROUP HERE