Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an
international organisation of those
developed countries that accept the principles of
representative democracy and a
free market economy. It originated in 1948 as the
Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), led by
Frenchman Robert Marjolin, to help administer the
Marshall Plan for the re-construction of
Europe after
World War II. Later its membership was extended to non-European states, and in
1960 it was reformed into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and co-ordinate domestic and international policies. It is a forum where peer pressure can act as a powerful incentive to improve policy and implement "soft law" — non-binding instruments that can occasionally lead to binding treaties.
Exchanges between OECD governments flow from information and analysis provided by a secretariat in Paris. The secretariat collects data, monitors trends, and analyses and forecasts economic developments. It also researches social changes or evolving patterns in trade, environment, agriculture, technology, taxation and other areas.
Over the past decade, the OECD has tackled a range of economic, social and environmental issues while further deepening its engagement with business, trade unions and other representatives of civil society. Negotiations at the OECD on taxation and transfer pricing, for example, have paved the way for bilateral tax treaties around the world.
Among other areas, the OECD has taken a role in co-ordinating international action on
corruption and
bribery, creating the
OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, which came into effect in February 1999.
The OECD has also constituted a
task force on spam, which submitted a detailed report, with several quite useful background papers on spam problems in developing countries, best practices for ISPs and email marketers etc appended.
The OECD's headquarters are at the
Château de la Muette in
Paris.
There are currently thirty full members; of these, 24 are described as high-income countries by the
World Bank in 2003.
Slovenia applied for membership on
14 March 1996,
Malta on
24 September 2005.
The
Republic of China (
Taiwan) has observer status on two OECD committees, but due to its controversial status as a state, it is not a formal OECD member.
The
Commission of the
European Union is participating in the work of the OECD, alongside the EU Member States. For more information on OECD's work related to its member countries, visit
OECD's country Web sitesBy May 2007 (or some time after that), new members will join the OECD for the next time, most likely including the remaining EU members who are not yet OECD members (
Cyprus,
Estonia,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Malta,
Slovenia; assuming that
Bulgaria and
Romania join in 2007, they would also be likely to join OECD),
Israel and
Chile. [
1] [
2]
As an
international organisation the terms of employment of OECD staff are not governed by the laws of the country in which their offices are located. Agreements with the host country safeguard the organisation's impartiality with regard to the host and member countries.
Hiring and
firing practices,
working hours and environment,
holiday time,
pension plans,
health insurance and
life insurance,
salaries, expatriation benefits and general conditions of employment are managed according to rules and regulations proper to the OECD. In order to maintain similar working conditions to similarly-structured organisations, the OECD participates as an independent organisation in the system of co-ordinated European organisations, whose other members include
NATO, the
Western European Union and the
European Patent Office.
*
PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment)
*
Frascati Manual*
Trade bloc*
Competition regulator*
Transfer pricing*
SourceOECD*http://www.oecd.org and http://www.oecd.org/infobycountry for OECD's Web sites on member countries
*
OECD Anti-Bribery Convention*
OECD page on OEEC*
OECD's Factbook presenting comparative economic, environmental and social data from the world's largest economies
*
OECD Antispam Task Force Report presenting an eight pronged set of measures for countering spam
