The UN TSE Handbook Project (UNHB) sought to make the “third or social economy (TSE) sector”—including nonprofit, social economy, and civil society institutions, as well as volunteer work—more visible in official economic statistics around the world in a systematic and reliable fashion. The ultimate goal of this work is to enhance both the understanding and credibility of this important set of institutions and activities and to provide a more solid, empirical foundation for enhancing the contributions it can make to improving the quality of life and solving the pressing social and environmental problems facing people around the world today.
This project succeeded in developing standards and guidance for the identification and reporting on third sector institutions and the amount and economic value of volunteer work in the System of National Accounts (SNA), the official guidance system for the compilation of national economic statistics that is employed by all countries. However, most data on third sector institutions are merged with data on other economic sectors, making the third sector and volunteer work virtually invisible in national economic statistics. The UN Satellite Account on Nonprofit and Related Institutions and Volunteer Work (hereafter the UN TSE Sector Handbook) developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies in cooperation with the United Nations Statistical Division and an international team of experts, seeks to remedy this. To do so, it calls on national statistical offices to prepare regular “satellite accounts” on this set of institutions and activities and provides a standard set of guidelines for doing so as part of existing official economic data-gathering and reporting.
TSE Sector “Satellite Accounts”
“Satellite accounts” reconfigure data already available in various statistical systems to highlight issues or activities not broken out in standard statistical compilations. The new UN TSE Sector Handbook, which updates and replaces the 2002 UN Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts, recommends the development of Third/Social Economy—or TSE sector—satellite accounts that will cover nonprofit institutions (NPIs), co-operatives, mutual associations, and social enterprises along with both direct and organization-based volunteer work. As outlined more fully in the Handbook, the institutions considered in-scope of these TSE sector satellite accounts must be: 1) self-governing—not controlled by government; 2) not compulsory; and 3) subject to some significant limitation on their distribution of profits. Building on a companion International Labour Organization Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work, the volunteer activity considered in-scope must be unpaid, of benefit to persons other than the volunteer or that person’s household or family, undertaken without compulsion, and be of meaningful duration (i.e., at least one hour) in a 4-week reference period.
Implementation of this TSE Sector Handbook will produce a quantum leap forward in the basic information available on TSE institutions and activities. Among the features that will finally become visible are:
- The number of TSE sector institutions, by type of institution and major field of activity.
- The number of TSE sector workers, both paid and volunteer.
- The “value added” by TSE sector organizations.
- The value of volunteer work, both direct and organization-based, by field.
- TSE sector operating expenditures.
- Sources of TSE sector revenue, including philanthropy, fees, and government support.
- The size and distribution of foundation grants.
Covered by these data are NPIs and volunteering in such fields as community development, economic development, education, health care, social services, environmental protection, human rights, advocacy, sports, grant-making, business and professional representation, arts and culture, labor, and many more. Also included will be cooperatives, mutual associations, and social enterprises in such fields as finance, trade, manufacturing, and human services.
From the UN NPI Handbook to the UN TSE Sector Handbook
The 2018 TSE Sector Handbook updates and expands upon the UN Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts (UN NPI Handbook). Developed by the Center in cooperation with an international team of statistical experts, and approved by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2002, the UN NPI Handbook offered countries a standard set of guidelines for highlighting the the nonprofit sector so that it can be seen and analyzed as a distinct sector in national economic accounts. The resulting “satellite accounts on non-profit institutions” pull together a comprehensive and reliable picture of the civil society sector, making it possible to gauge its contribution and track its evolution over time. As part of this process, statistical agencies are also called on to estimate the scale and value of the volunteer work these organizations mobilize and to include this in estimates of economic activity.
In 2015, the Center and the United Nations Statistical Division undertook the revision of this NPI Handbook drawing on the experiences and lessons-learned from countries that have implemented the Handbook. While the new TSE Sector Handbook does not alter the definition of a nonprofit institution, it provides additional guidance to permit the extension of the resulting satellite accounts to include a broader conception of the “third sector” that includes at least some of the emerging “social economy” and “social enterprise” entities, as well as some forms of direct volunteering, which have not been included in official statistical procedures up to now.
Five major developments triggered the need for this revision:
- The 2008 revision of the System of National Accounts (SNA), which introduced many improvements in the treatment of nonprofit institutions. In particular, the 2008 SNA calls for governments to sub-sector NPIs in the government and corporations accounts and emphasizes the importance of developing satellite accounts on the NPI sector. The new TSE Sector Handbook thus provides guidance to countries in their efforts to sub-sector NPIs, and offers more detailed guidance for identifying financial flows to them—including those from government, the market, and households in the form of donations and membership dues.
- The 2008 revision of the International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities, Rev.4 (ISIC Rev.4), which significantly expanded the number of fields in which NPIs tend to operate. The UN TSE Sector Handbook updates the International Classification of Non-Profit Organizations (ICNPO), and provides tools for classifying organizations in ISIC Rev.4 and for cross-walking ICNPO to ISIC Rev.4. The relationship between ICNPO and other systems, such as the European standard classification system of productive economic activities (NACE) and the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), are also be addressed.
- The 2011 publication of the International Labour Organization’s Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work. The UN TSE Sector Handbook incorporates the guidelines published in the ILO Manual for the measurement of the volunteer contribution to the NPI sector, including the measurement of direct volunteering.
- The release of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The UN TSE Sector Handbook provides guidance for countries that wish to go beyond the production of basic estimates on the NPI sector to also measure the output, outcomes, and impact of nonprofit organizations and related third sector organizations—specifically as they relate to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
- Growing interest from statisticians, policy makers, social scientists, and private investors in “related” institutional units. Such units can take a variety of organizational forms—such as cooperatives, mutual societies, social enterprises, non-stock, and benefit corporations—as well as not formally organized activities. The UN TSE Sector Handbook draws on the substantial progress made in recent years in developing conceptual frameworks for identifying and reporting on the contribution of these entities, including that developed under the auspices of the European Commission-funded Third Sector Impact Project (TSI) that aimed to define the scope and gauge the impact of this broader “Third Sector.”
Implementation
To date, at least 33 countries have committed to implementing the original UN NPI Handbook and 27 countries have either completed at least one satellite account or have such work under way. Included are countries as disparate as Belgium and Brazil, Cameroon and Canada, Italy and India, Mexico and Mongolia, and Peru and Portugal. In addition, several countries have made progress in implementing the 2018 UN TSE Sector Handbook, including Spain, Luxembourg, and Poland.
While the Center is no longer able to offer direct assistance to countries interested in pursuing implementation of the UN TSE Sector Handbook, we have compiled a series of resources to assist those implementing, or considering implementing, this crucial data tool. Click here to explore these resources.
UNHB Project Publications
Please visit the publications database to browse UN Handbook related publications. Also available in the database is a partial archive of Satellite Accounts issued by national statistical agencies over the years. Click here for blog posts related to the Handbook Project.
Contact
For questions about the UN TSE Handbook Project, or for implementation questions, please contact former Project Manager and UN TSE Sector Handbook co-author, Megan Haddock.
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