Measuring the Size and Scope of the Cooperative Economy
* Report: Measuring the Size and Scope of the Cooperative Economy: Results of the 2014 Global Census on Co-operatives. Dave Grace and ass., 2014
URL = http://www.davegraceassociates.com/uploads/Global_Census_on_Cooperatives_-_Summary_Analysis.pdf
For the United Nation’s Secretariat Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division for Social Policy and Development
Overview of the Global Census on Cooperatives
It’s very difficult to determine how to support or aid cooperative development without reliable data on the size and impact of cooperatives. Despite having completed the United Nation’s International Year of Cooperatives (IYC), clear, concise and reputable data on the number of cooperatives globally and per country, their number of members/clients, turnover, employees and assets did not exist. As a result of leadership from the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs, with support from Rabobank, the first ever Global Census on Cooperatives was completed in 2013-14. As its name suggests, the Census is a count of as many cooperatives, is as many countries as possible regardless of their sector or membership in regional/global associations. This is the first time that a broad-based database on cooperatives has been complied and data contained within it should be considered a start, not the definitive count.
Summary Statistics – 145 countries
2.6 Million Cooperatives have over 1 Billion memberships and clients.
With data from 145 countries in all regionals of the world, this database is the most comprehensive data set on cooperatives. As the first of its kind, there will undoubtedly be improvements to the data over time. While it’s tempting to claim (and potentially accurate) that there are over 1 billion people that are members and clients of cooperatives it’s more accurate to refer to memberships than individuals. For example, in France there are 147 million cooperative clients and memberships in a country with a population of 65 million people. So while it logical to recognize that each person is a member/client of France 2.25 cooperatives on average, the level of detail in the data does not allow for identifying if a person has more than one membership among cooperatives. Nonetheless, cooperative membership/clients relative to the total population in a country does provide an important marker on the outreach of cooperatives in a country.
12.6 Million Employees work in 770,000 Cooperative offices and Outlets
Together cooperatives employ 12,595,501 persons or roughly 0.2% of the world’s population. In relative terms this is slightly larger than the entire adult population of Ecuador. It’s important to note that the 12.6 million employees do not include data from the 982,400 agricultural cooperatives in China as employment data was not available.
US$20 Trillion in Cooperative Assets generate US$3 trillion in Annual Revenue
Together cooperatives around the world generated US$2.98 trillion in annual revenue during the most recent year for which data was available. This is done through the leveraging of their combined asset base of US$19.6 trillion. Combined the global cooperative economy is larger than France’s economy and places right behind Germany’s economy as the 5th largest economic unit if it were a united country.
However, cooperatives are generally locally owned and operated enterprises. At a national level the cooperative economy comprises over 10% of the Gross Domestic Product in 4 countries in the world (New Zealand (20%), Netherlands (18%), France (18%) and Finland (14%))."