About Capacity Building

Since 1990, capacity building has spread to serve competition authorities in every region of the world.  A full range of services is provided, including case studies seminars, cartel prosecution, bid rigging & public procurement, merger analysis, abuse of dominance, legislative drafting, studies in sector specific regulation, judicial training, and high-level policy briefings on topics such as reducing unnecessary restraints on competition in laws and regulations.

Many of the above services are now delivered through regional centres for competition in Seoul and Budapest. The Seoul centre, in partnership with the Korean government, opened in spring 2004. The second regional centre, in partnership with the Hungarian competition authority, opened in Budapest in February 2005.

Click here to see the current calendar of OECD capacity building events.

The Global Forum on Competition brings together competition authorities from some 80 countries for substantive roundtable discussions and peer reviews. Other, regional activities, including the Latin American Competition Forum, allow countries with similar backgrounds to focus on their specific needs.

Competition judges also benefit from capacity building work with the competition division.  Starting in 1996, seminars for national judges have been held in Russia, southern Africa and Brazil.  Beginning in 2005, in cooperation with the European Commission and the Hungarian competition authority, the Competition Division supports meetings of European Competition Law judges.

Also beginning in 2005, a new method was launched to evaluate a competition authority along nine vital organisational dimensions and help the authority develop an improvement plan.  Click here to learn more about organisation evaluation and development for competition authorities.

Partnerships with regional development banks provide key support to the capacity building program.  The first partnership, with the Inter-American Development Bank, supports the Latin American Competition Forum.  A new partnership with the Asian Development Bank supports an expanded program of support for the People's Republic of China.  Vital financial support to the capacity building program is also supplied by the European Commission, Hungary, Korea and Chinese Taipei.