The Eighth CIRIEC International Scientific Conference focused on “Solidarity Social Economy (SSE) and the 2030 agenda: inclusive and sustainable development through innovative social practices" with the following thematic axes: Public policies and SSE; Social promotion strategies; Innovation and technology; Sustainability and accessibility; and Measurement of the incidence and impact of SSE.

At the conference, that included 180 presentations across three days, Mr. Dong Il Choi from ILO’s Cooperatives Unit participated in a session on cooperative and SSE statistics. Taking the floor after a presentation by Chiara Carini (EURICSE) and Hyungsik Eum (ICA) on ‘Producing and aggregating statistics on cooperatives - Recent development and current issues’, Mr. Choi noted that the initiative on the implementation of the guidelines concerning statistics of cooperatives was part of the Strengthening SSE Knowledge Base Project supported by the Korean government.

He noted that the initiative would assess if the Guidelines concerning Statistics of Cooperatives fit the realities in five countries (South Korea, Italy, Turkey, Tanzania, Costa Rica). He mentioned that the main findings from the five countries would be presented at the 21st ICLS in October 2023, and a cooperative statistics manual operational tools would be developed, presented, and discussed for adoption at the 22nd ICLS in 2028.

He concluded by indicating that ILO COOP is currently coordinating with the relevant ILO field offices on the work plans in each of the target countries. Next steps include the launch of the national and global advisory committees to guide the national and global case studies.