OECD Annual Report - 2005
Some 45 years ago, a group of far-thinking world leaders decided that the
economic co-operation between the members of the Marshall Plan should
be continued and strengthened by the evolution of the OEEC into the OECD
and its expansion to include more than Marshall Plan recipients.
They believed that trading goods and services was the path to peace, stability
and prosperity, not just for their own members but for the world economy
as a whole.
Their breadth of vision was astonishing. This becomes clear when you realise
that the ideals that inspired them, and which have always been at the heart
of the OECD’s mission, are just as valid in today’s globalised world as they
were in 1960.
Those OECD founders created an Organisation whose mission was to achieve
the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a rising
standard of living in member countries, while maintaining financial stability,
and thus to contribute to the development of the world economy. This
included contributing to sound economic expansion in member as well as
non-member countries in the process of economic development and
contributing to the expansion of world trade on a multilateral,
non-discriminatory basis.
Globalisation has made that mission statement perhaps even more pertinent
today than it was 45 years ago and the OECD is continuing to fulfil its
demanding mandate, not just for its 30 member countries but for the world
economy as a whole.
The OECD now has a global reach engaging some 100 non-member economies
in different aspects of its work. For example, the OECD is working in
partnership with Middle East and North African countries in a new initiative
on investment and governance for development. We have recently completed
new studies on Brazil, China and Russia and OECD members are working
together to co-ordinate development efforts in pursuit of the
Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty in the world’s least
developed countries.
This Organisation has achieved much in the past 45 years with the help of
the world’s political leaders – many of whose faces are on the cover of this
book – but there are always new challenges, whether ageing populations or
the sometimes painful adjustments to globalisation. This Annual Report looks
at how the OECD is helping governments meet these challenges and deal
with new issues as they arise.
