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 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), 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 1961 it was reformed into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Objectives and action
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.
The OECD helps governments to foster prosperity and fight poverty through economic growth, financial stability, trade and investment, technology, innovation, entrepreneurship and development co-operation. It is helping to ensure that economic growth, social development and environmental protection are achieved together. Other aims include creating jobs for everyone, social equity and clean and effective governance.
The OECD is at the forefront of efforts to understand, and to help governments to respond to, new developments and concerns. These include trade and structural adjustment, online security, and the challenges related to reducing poverty in the developing world. For more than 40 years, the OECD has been one of the world’s largest and most reliable sources of comparable statistical, economic, and social data. OECD databases span areas as diverse as national accounts, economic indicators, the labour force, trade, employment, migration, education, energy, health, industry, taxation and the environment. Much of the research and analysis is published in online and print editions by OECD Publishing.
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's headquarters are at the Château de la Muette in Paris.
Secretary general
Since 1996 the secretary-general of the OECD has been Donald J. Johnston of Canada. He has announced that he would resign his mandate in May 2006. Six candidates for a new secretary-general were announced in July 2005, with Mexican economist José Ángel Gurría being elected on November 30, 2005. Gurría will take office in June 2006.
The other candidates were:
- Mr Marek Belka (Poland)
- Mr Allan Fels (Australia)
- Mr Seung-Soo Han (Korea)
- Mr Alain Madelin (France)
- Mrs Sawako Takeuchi (Japan)
Members There are currently thirty full members; of these, 24 are described as high-income countries by the World Bank in 2003.
| Founding members (1961): |
- Austria
- Belgium
- Canada
- Denmark
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Iceland
- Ireland
- Italy
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- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Portugal
- Spain
- Sweden
- Switzerland
- Turkey
- United Kingdom
- United States
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| Joined later (listed with year of admission): |
- Japan (1964)
- Finland (1969)
- Australia (1971)
- Mexico (1994)
- Czech Republic (1995)
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- Hungary (1996)
- South Korea (1996)
- Poland (1996)
- New Zealand (1973)
- Slovakia (2000)
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Malta applied to join 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 sites
Personnel Policy
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.
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