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Tel.: 52 55 52 81 38 10 Fax: 52 55 52 80 04 80 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.rtn.net.mx/ocde OECD Tokyo Centre 3rd Floor, Nippon Press Center Building 2-2-1 Uchisaiwaicho Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-0011, Japan Tel.: 81 3 5532 0021 Fax: 81 3 5532 0035 E-mail: [email protected] ANNUAL REPORT 2003 Internet: www.oecdtokyo.org OECD Washington Center 2001 L Street, NW, Suite 650, Washington DC 20036-4922 Tel.: 1 202 785 6323 Fax: 1 202 785 0350 E-mail: [email protected] Internet: www.oecdwash.org www.oecd.org -:HSTCQE=V^\V\[: ISBN 92-64-19717-6 ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT 01 2003 07 1 P OECD Annual Report 2003 THE ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT (OECD) ANNUAL REPORT is prepared by the Public Affairs Division, Public Affairs and Communications Directorate. It is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. Pictures: all pictures are © OECD except: page 21: International shipping © Lester Lefkowitz/CORBIS; page 41: Tractor © www.tedtea.org; page 58: Iss: International space station © Nasa. For pictures in high resolution, e-mail: [email protected]. Publications: book titles in italics are available for sale via the OECD online bookshop: www.oecd.org/bookshop. © OECD . OECD . ANNUAL . REPORT 2003 OVERVIEW Co-operative relations with non-members 65 Preface 5 South Africa About the OECD 8 Latin America OECD site project Statistics 71 Selected events 12 Reform of statistics gathering Public affairs and communications 75 KEY ACTIVITIES OECD Forum 2002 Business and Industry Advisory Economic growth and stability 17 Committee, Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC and TUAC) The Euro area Insurance Transport security The international fight against money How does your business grow? laundering and terrorist financing: Employment and social cohesion 24 the FATF 83 Education: PISA Migration Nuclear Energy Agency 84 Brain studies International Energy Agency 86 Ageing and employment European Conference of Ministers International trade and investment 31 of Transport 88 OECD and the Doha Development Agenda Steel Shipbuilding HOW THE OECD WORKS Foreign direct investment for development Sustainable development 39 Executive directorate 93 Johannesburg Summit Who does what 96 Biodiversity Social aspects of sustainable development OECD Directory 103 Governance 46 Ministerial communiqué 104 Corporate governance Harmful tax practices Distributed public governance PRACTICAL INFORMATION Best use of new technologies 54 The OECD Secretariat 115 Biotechnology Online security Organisation chart 116 Development co-operation 59 Ambassadors, Permanent New Partnership for Africa’s Development representatives to the OECD 118 (NEPAD) Millennium development goals OECD member countries 121 OVERVIEW Preface . Preface The past year has been a very active and challenging one for international co-operation. The OECD has responded flexibly to the rapidly-evolving globalised economy by developing new projects, and by continuing to modernise the functioning of the Organisation. This Annual Report docu- ments our activities in 2002, and points the directions of upcoming work, some of which I would like to highlight here. The evolving policy agenda The positive economic developments in early 2002 did not last. Global eco- nomic recovery is now faltering against the background of geopolitical OECD Secretary-General uncertainty. Taking a longer perspective, OECD countries continued to make Donald J. Johnston. progress in structural reforms that foster economic growth, raise produc- tivity and achieve higher levels of employment. But the pattern of growth across the OECD area is changing. In most of the post-war era there has been a general tendency for countries with relatively low gross domestic product (GDP) per capita to catch up with the leading countries. This pattern of convergence was reversed during the 1990s, as the United States drew strongly ahead of the field again. Australia, Canada and Ireland also achieved much higher growth over the past few years than continen- tal Europe or Japan. These differences stem in part from demographics. But policies matter too, in particular as some OECD countries made strong progress in structural reform. The OECD Growth Study provides a frame- work for analysing these issues, and the OECD is now monitoring the implementation of its recommendations. The OECD has for a long time worked on a number of policy issues that are relevant to the fight against terrorism or to managing the aftermath of a major terrorist attack. Thus, following the tragic events of 11 September 2001, the OECD provided its members with an assessment of the economic impacts, as well as impacts on international trade and on financial markets. It accelerated work in sensitive fields such as security of information systems and standards for access to pathogens held in bio- logical resource centres. It has begun new work on ship ownership and cargo verification. A special Task Force on Terrorism Insurance is helping members come to grips with mega-terrorism risks. The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg focused world attention on progress in the decade since the Rio Earth Summit and provided an opportunity to review international commitments on development, trade, financing and the environment. It produced two main results: a detailed, action-oriented Plan of Implementation, intended to guide work on sustainable development in the years to come; and a series 5 . OECD . ANNUAL . REPORT 2003 of partnership initiatives involving government, business, non- governmental organisations and other groups to address specific sustain- able development problems. The OECD participated actively in the preparations for the summit and in the meeting itself. For follow-up, the OECD will concentrate on areas where it has a clear comparative advantage: corporate responsibility and accountability; poverty reduction, especially through better development assistance and trade liberalisation; methods to achieve growth with less environmental impact; protecting and managing natural resources; and statistics on sustainable development. The OECD has also joined seven partnership initiatives, in areas ranging from dealing with environmental emergencies to developing indicators of children’s environmental health. OECD work to facilitate multilateral trade negotiations has intensified in the run-up to the 5th World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Cancún, Mexico, in September 2003. Member countries are committed to achieving the promise embodied in the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). And particularly at a time of marked political and economic uncertainty, they appreciate that all countries will reap benefits if the negotiations are successfully completed, while failure would raise serious dangers to the multilateral trading system and the global economy. Making progress in agriculture is crucial to the success of the negotiations and to making the DDA a true “development round”. The OECD will help govern- ments build consensus among themselves and among the broader public in support of market openness in order to strengthen the negotiation process. Adaptation and reform Adaptation and institutional “reform” are constants in any living organi- sation. Pressures to adapt and reform have undoubtedly strengthened over the past decade, with a denser web of interconnections between economies (globalisation), the pressures and opportunities afforded by new informa- tion and communications technologies, and greater involvement of citi- zens in the making of public policy. In the globalising world economy, almost every policy issue now has an international dimension and has become a subject of international co-operation. Reflecting the increasing importance of education in our knowledge-based societies, the OECD in 2002 created a separate Directorate for Education. Globalisation has also made it necessary to involve a broader range of countries in the OECD’s activities. Thus, six new members have joined the Organisation over the past decade, and the OECD now co-operates with some 70 non-member economies. Like many organisations and governments the OECD has been operating with tight, even declining, budgets and continuously seeks efficiency and best value for money. Modernisation has also been a priority and the 6 OVERVIEW Preface . Organisation has streamlined its budget process and made its financial system more accountable and transparent by signing up to the Inter- national Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). The 2002 accounts, certified by external auditors, will be made available on the OECD website. It is also forging ahead with a major renovation of the headquarters site to improve safety and enable the Organisation to operate more efficiently (see page 10). And the challenges will keep coming. In the years ahead the OECD, princi- pally its members, will need to formulate a strategy to respond to coun- tries that wish to join the OECD. This will include addressing essential questions such as OECD decision-making procedures, budget contribu- tions and prioritisation of activities. These are all issues that the OECD Council is examining now. I am personally committed to ensuring that the OECD responds to these challenges in an effective manner, and continues to be an essential com- ponent of the multilateral system. The key to this success is the spirit of co-operation between like-minded governments that was the founding principle of the OECD more than 40 years ago.