WOSM's Membership Report 2021

This is the World Organization of the Scout Movement's (WOSM's) latest comprehensive Membership Report, which was presented to the World Scout Conference in 2021. Continuing with the standard set by the first report published in 2017, it provides to NSOs an insight into WOSM’s membership data and trends. All findings are based on data received from individual NSOs and the WOSM census figures.

The following pages provide an overview, analysis, and summary of the 2019 census data for WOSM. They first provide an overall picture, then focus on the Youth Members and Adults in Scouting before looking at the global trends of WOSM’s membership.

COVID-19 Impact

It is important to note that this report reflects the WOSM membership status and trends before the COVID-19 pandemic. The report is based on official census declarations from NSOs and additional data gathering by the World Scout Bureau, starting from 2005 to 2019. WOSM is aware that the global pandemic and resulting environment has challenged and significantly affected membership retention and growth across our NSOs. 

The full impact of the pandemic will only be visible in the next membership report in 2024, as well as in the annually published census data on scout.org. Further insight into the immediate impact of the global pandemic on NSOs can be found through this summary of the COVID-19 NSO survey of October 2020. 

Navigate through the pages in the Table of Contents to see the dashboards and read more about the findings.