The OECD
Creation: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) was established in 1961 and grew out of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), which was created in 1948, just a few years after the Second World War. When it was set up, the OECD’s main objective was the application of the Marshall Plan, which aimed to reconstruct Europe and had already been adopted by the United States. Once this was done, a new challenge arose: attempting to improve economic relations between member countries. Main activities: with 35 member states, the OECD’s primary mission is to promote better social and economic policies on a global scale and, consequently, to provide governments with cross-disciplinary analyses and recommendations in order to ensure:restored confidence in the markets by governments, institutions and banks; healthy public finance as the basis of all sustainable economies;universal access to new skills and the acquisition of new sources of growth, in order to ensure the creation of innovative strategies which not only enable the advancement of developing countries, but are also environmentally stable. Key words:Development: in the strict economic sense of the word, development means the improvement and qualitative and sustainable progress of an economy and its functioning. However, nowadays “development” often takes on broader meaning, encompassing human development, social development, political development, environmental development, and so on. Economic cooperation: a series of mutual aid and trade policies between two or more states in order to promote economic development. Free market: a market where buyers and sellers can trade freely according to the price and quantity that they want. Successive financial and economic crises have sometimes got the better of a less free, “more regulated” market. A market economy is an economy where all trade is unregulated, the state does not interfere and the demand and the offers of economic agents are all that matter.Free trade: the opposite of protectionism, free trade is a concept which calls for the suppression of all tariff barriers (customs duties) and obstacles to international exchange and transactions.Globalisation: from an economic point of view, globalisation reflects the evolution of the worldwide integration of economic, ecological, financial and cultural phenomena in a unified economic and commercial system. In other words, while in the past economies developed alone (on a national, regional or local scale), today they are linked and evolve together in a “globalised” economy. Governance: a way of governing and administrating. In this particular context, we are talking specifically about democratic governance. This notion goes beyond the traditional framework of public action and focuses on new forms of civic responsibility. The state remains the main actor, but it is no longer alone. The International Monetary Fund (IMF): founded in 1944, the IMF is an organisation charged with ensuring financial stability on an international scale. It is also a specialised institution of the UN. In concrete terms, this means that it monitors the correct implementation of exchange rates and lends foreign currency to countries which cannot pay for their imports. Over time, it has become the “last-hope lender” for the poorest, most indebted countries. Liberalisation or privatisation: an action which makes trade freer by reducing the intervention of the state. It is therefore possible to liberalise a whole sector or economy. For example, the liberalisation of the water sector would mean that it was no longer managed by the state (or public institutions) but by private companies. Sustainable development
