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.

The Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance, organised by the OECD in partnership with the World Bank, met in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in March to establish regional reform priorities and to develop a White Paper on Corporate Governance in Asia. Scheduled for release in Tokyo on 11 June 2003, the White Paper will set forth a common policy agenda for corporate-governance reform in the Asian region.

Can technology help to reduce hunger and eventually poverty, and if so, under what conditions? When Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe refused to accept 20,000 tonnes of maize from the US to feed his starving people, the world collectively gasped. The problem, of course, was that it was genetically modified.

India’s electricity supply industry is mainly owned and operated by the public sector, and is currently running a growing risk of bankruptcy. While India is the third-largest producer of hard coal after China and the US, it imports around 1.4 million barrels of oil per day, 60% of its total needs. According to the US Energy Information Administration, India has a shortfall of roughly 13,000 megawatts of electricity.

China has reached a critical point in reform of its enterprises and needs to make rapid progress in the next few years if it is to preserve the gains made so far, the OECD says in a new publication, Reforming China’s Enterprises.