4 March -
Norio Hattori is the new OECD ambassador for Japan. He succeeds Shinichi Kitajima.

4 March -
Wolfgang Petritsch takes up his post as new ambassador for Austria succeeding Ulrich Stacher.

The OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials celebrated its 10th anniversary in November 2007**. A decade on, the aim of the Convention–to fight against active corruption (offering bribes)–is as pertinent as ever.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shakes hands with OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría at the launch of a new multilateral initiative called the Partnership for Democratic Governance (PDG).The new initiative is designed to assist those developing countries that need help to improve governance, strengthen capacity and accountability, and deliver the services that are essential supports of effective government.

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On 19 June 2007 South Africa became the first African country to join the OECD’s Anti-Bribery Convention. The still photo shows South Africa's ambassador to France, Nomasonto Maria Sibanda-Thusi, welcomed by OECD secretary-general, Angel Gurría.

As political leaders gathered in Heiligendamm in northern Germany this June and before that at the OECD in Paris in May, the concern on everyone’s minds was the future shape of the global economy.

Financing retirement was the theme in the latest in a new series of online public discussions, “Ask the economists”. Held in April, OECD experts fielded a dozen questions from readers in Canada, France, Germany, Korea, the UK and the US, as well as the World Bank, about issues such as taxation, equity, early retirement, life expectancy, mortality-linked debt, the role of savings in stocks and real estate, and private versus public provision. The following are just a few extracts from the debate.

Imagine a tax return no longer than a postcard. This at least is what proponents of a “flat tax” system predict.

Government contracts generate valuable economic activity, but they are also prone to bribery on a global scale. A new report shows how policymakers might detect bribery in public procurement and suggests ways of defeating it as well.

The 1997 Anti-Bribery Convention was the first global instrument to fight corruption in cross-border business deals. It has since been ratified by all 30 OECD countries and six non-members. National governments and businesses have used the Convention to improve their own legislation and raise standards.

The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention is ten years old in November, yet rarely has it been in the public spotlight quite as much as in recent months, thanks to headline-grabbing investigations of possible bribery of foreign officials by companies from member countries. We asked Mark Pieth, chair of the Working Group on Bribery, to explain.

Tax inspectors may be an eagle-eyed lot, but in today’s global, technology-sophisticated world, their job has become extra challenging. The OECD’s 1996 Recommendation on the Tax Deductibility of Bribes to Foreign Public Officials is designed to discourage international corruption by disallowing bribes that take the form of tax-deductible expenses, for instance.

Globalisation brings costs and benefits, even for the tax professional. The move towards a borderless world has opened up new opportunities for taxpayers to minimise their overall tax liabilities. Much of this tax planning is legitimate. Good tax planning is driven by the reality of businesses having to operate with increasingly complex laws, particularly affecting international activities, while at the same time wanting to legally minimise their costs, including tax costs.

Governments around the world need to be better prepared for large-scale catastrophes and take a more proactive role in working with the insurance industry and other players, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría told participants at the inaugural meeting of the OECD International Network on Financial Management of Large-Scale Catastrophes in Paris, 8 September 2006.

Destination Europe is a slightly misleading title since its subject, the political development of Europe from 1945 to 2003, is a journey with a point of origin when Europe, which a generation earlier dominated the world, lay in ruins with no destination.

Can technology bring better government? Anyone who has filled a tax return online would probably answer yes. But is that enough? The answer is, probably not. A new report, E-Government for Better Government, the second phase of an OECD project launched in 2001, suggests that while in principle, e-government instruments can improve efficiency, increase citizen awareness and help promote new initiatives, it is not enough just to open a website. The basic key challenges remain the same in the real world as in the virtual one: how to be more agile, responsive and accountable.

“Good governance is the basis of all OECD activities, which is hardly surprising given that it is essential for all economic and social progress.” These remarks by Secretary-General Donald J. Johnston set the tone for a ministerial meeting on Strengthening Trust in Government, hosted by the Netherlands in Rotterdam on 28 November.

Even a few short decades ago, power and politics seemed to be played out only at election time, when politicians would consult the people, then return to government or opposition to take care of the affairs of the state. The next election was barely on their minds. Citizens, whether through trust or ignorance, generally would ask no more of them than that.

If there were ever any doubt, current events are making it abundantly clear: good, effective government is crucial to a well-functioning economy and society. Natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina in the US, explosions of social and racial tensions in Europe, terrorism and threats of global pandemics have put government in the spotlight. Such events also underscore the high–and rising–expectations that citizens have of their governments.

Governments have always been keen to achieve results, but calls to improve public sector performance in OECD countries have become particularly loud and insistent over the last couple of decades.

OECD countries have carried out many public management reforms over the last 20 years or so. Yet there is still little comparative data to help governments plan such moves and gauge their progress. To be sure, statistical and budgetary agencies in many OECD countries have made attempts at measuring general government productivity, for instance, but these efforts have tended to be made in isolation, and often employing different methods.

Adriaan Buyserd is Dutch and Lampros Kontogeorgos is Greek. Both are graduate students studying international public administration at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and both will be taking part in the parallel summit for students that is being staged this month in Rotterdam alongside the OECD ministerial meeting on trust in government.

It started in the 1980s with privatisation, when state-run commercial services like telecoms were transferred to private ownership. Now an extension of this idea is to hire private sector businesses to deliver public services. The services remain public, the government remains responsible for regulation and oversight, but businesses either replace public authorities in carrying out the job or share the work with them. What are the reasons for introducing this notion, how does it operate in practice, and can it achieve its goals?

Even sceptics would agree that corruption, quite apart from being anti-democratic, distorts markets and chokes development. That is why the OECD leads the fight against corruption in international business, notably through its renowned Anti-Bribery Convention.

There are lots of jokes about car salesmen. Many play on the idea of fraudulence and untrustworthiness. If governments place excessive faith in the invisible hand of markets and craft social policies and public service programmes that rely on commercial promise, they run the risk of being seen in the same manner: as policy sales people selling products, and certainly not practising good governance.

Chinese-OECD relations have developed strongly ever since the OECD Council decided, in October 1995, to launch a programme of dialogue and co-operation with China.

Images of voters braving death to cast their ballots in elections across the world remind us that democracy, however imperfect, is not some tedious civic duty, but a victory over oppression. In this light, it might seem slightly ludicrous to worry about such bastions of freedom and stability as, say, the Scandinavian countries.

The global political calendar for 2004 appears unspectacular compared with recent years. No Monterreys, no Johannesburgs, no Cancúns, no summits on water or the information society. Yet, like all calm waters, looks can deceive.

E-government can improve efficiency, increase citizen involvement and help achieve reform – but it is not enough just to open up a website and wait for visitors to start flooding in. Ireland tops the list of OECD countries when it comes to providing government services online, for instance, but actually using online services is apparently far more popular in Sweden.

Can technology bring better government? Education, healthcare and employment take precedence for most citizens over the simple question of whether they can email their senator or member of parliament. But government websites have changed from simply being static showcases to providing a virtual kiosk of essential government services.

Does government have a future? For a public organisation such as the OECD the question seems purely rhetorical and the answer obvious. Does anyone seriously believe that the world could function without government? Yet, the proposition is far from being fanciful.

Achieving peace from conflict depends on building respect and working together to forge agreement and new institutions. It can be done.

Strengthening the relationship between a government and its citizens might seem to be such an obvious priority for democracies that it hardly needs spelling out. Yet governments everywhere have been criticised for being remote from the people, not listening enough and not seeking participation. Street protests from Seattle to Genoa may have grabbed most of the headlines, but less spectacular developments have included a steady erosion of voter turnout in elections, falling membership in political parties in virtually every OECD country and declining confidence in key public institutions.

The Internet was still in its infancy in 1994 when the head of Chile’s tax service, Javier Etcheberry, saw an important role for it: a tool to help his department provide an efficient, high-quality service to the community. Perhaps an expected task for any modern democratic government, but it was a brave and inspired move at the time. And it is one that has been thoroughly vindicated; this year more than half the tax information filed by employers and a quarter of the country’s income tax returns were filed online.