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This 1963 report presents the articles on the avoidance of double taxation on income and capital, as agreed upon by the Fiscal Committee. Double taxation is the taxation of a single taxpayer with respect to the same subject matter over the same period in more than one country. This draft aims to inspire further conventions on the elimination of double taxation, a threat to trade and migration. The report includes commentaries on the articles, progress on the elimination of double taxation, and possible future developments.
These proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Transport Economics, held on 10-11 October 1967 covered choice of transport investments, elements of transport demand, urban transport and imputation of transport intrastructure charges.
Acts of vandalism or violence and the defacing of facilities are increasing in public transport systems. This report provides an analysis of the social and psychological causes which is a prerequisite to formulate corrective measures. A comparison of what a number of systems have experienced focuses attention on the scale of the problems involved and different ways of resolving them. The recommendations that can be made differentiate between the responsibilities of the operators, national governments and the various local authorities.
Portugal's development co-operation programme is characterised by concentration bilaterally on the Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, reflecting close links of history, language and culture. Those countries are now among the least developed countries.
Recently, Portugal has emphasized two new areas of development co-operation. First, private sector development, based on economic policy reforms supported by the international institutions, and on instruments which encourage the involvement of the Portuguese private sector. The second new area of emphasis is the strengthening of the governance systems in the PALOPs, the Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa, focusing particularly on legal systems and the judiciary, but also extending to parliamentary institutions, electoral systems, local governments and constitutional advice.
In its review of Portugal's programme the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) noted that Portugal has the potential to play a larger role, particularly in Mozambique and Angola, where critical post-conflict development needs have to be met. It noted that a new Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (the CPLP), including Brazil, has recently been formed to enhance dialogue and mutual development efforts.
The OECD's annual Development Co-operation Report provides the most complete analysis of the aid efforts made over the past year and sets out the main lines of action required to build for the future. This year's edition examines the role development co-operation might play in the face of global economic, political, social and environmental changes as well as how the implementation of a real global development partnership strategy is coming on and how this strategy can become the cornerstone of development assistance.
The Belgian aid system has experienced serious problems in recent years and is now going through a crucial transition period. An action plan has been prepared by the Secretary of State for Co-operation and basic reforms are under way. This plan, entitled "Showing our colours -- Plan for the future of Belgian co-operation and development", was well received by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC). During its triennial peer review of Belgium's development co-operation policy and aid programme, the Committee also took note of the determination of the Secretary of State to design a co-operation programme that goes beyond economic and social considerations to take full account of the basic values of the society. In relation to general good practice among donors, the Committee indicated its support for a number of measures that might enhance the effectiveness of Belgium's development co-operation programme, including increasing efficiency by decentralising more executive functions and monitoring effectiveness through an active assessment, evaluation and feedback policy; raising staff skills through better training in key development subjects and by delegating authority both internally and to local offices; devising country strategies based on a new partnership approach; and focusing technical co-operation efforts on strengthening local capacity.
What is the impact of political decentralisation in Latin America? This book considers the problems raised by political decentralisation in the region and identifies the challenges ahead. Political decentralisation tends to devolve a certain amount of financial responsibility to the sub-national levels of government, hence potentially destabilising centrally established fiscal and budgetary targets. The question is, thus, a particularly timely one which seeks to reconcile enhanced democratisation with the fiscal rigour demanded by the international marketplace.
This book brings together papers presented at the eighth annual meeting of the "International Forum on Latin American Perspectives", sponsored jointly by the OECD Development Centre and the Inter-American Development Bank. The analyses of economic experts are confronted with the real-life experiences of practitioners from a number of Latin American countries, providing the reader with a stimulating exposé of the risks and benefits to economic development of the new decentralising trend. Of particular interest are the so-called "ten commandments" suggested by Ricardo Hausmann as a set of rules which should govern fiscal management in decentralised democracies. Discussion of these and other propositions makes for a lively, yet soundly based contribution to this very important debate.
In its triennial review of the Netherlands' aid policies and programmes, the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) was particularly interested in the Netherlands' ambitious, even daring, reorganisation of its development co-operation which was undertaken in 1996. This far-reaching reorganisation affects the budget process and staffing of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and embassies in recipient countries. The DAC also welcomed the planned focus of Dutch aid on poverty eradication through economic and social sector development and noted the four Dutch volume input targets.
The trend in the Dutch ODA effort, which declined between 1986 and 1994 as a share of Dutch GNP ration has turned around between 1994 and 1996. In 1996, The Netherlands was the fourth-ranking DAC Member in terms of ODA/GNP ratio and the fifth-ranking in absolute terms. The Committee commended the Netherlands on its ODA performance and hoped that the Dutch Information and Awareness Programme would continue to help inform the Dutch public, which has registered firm support for Dutch aid.
The OECD Development Assistance Committee's 1998 review of the UK's development aid programs and policies. It finds that the United Kingdom is changing its approach to international development policy. The new British Government, elected in May 1997, has created a Department for International Development (DFID), headed by a Secretary of State within the Cabinet. This body has a much wider range of responsibilities than its predecessors, notably in ensuring the coherence of all British policies affecting development. For the first time in two decades, the government issued a White Paper on International Development. This document commits the government to the goal of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, along with other key international development goals. In its triennial review of British aid policies and programmes, the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) welcomed the United Kingdom's new policies. It viewed the creation of DFID, with its broader responsibilities covering the whole range of bilateral and multilateral aid, the emphasis on strengthened international co-ordination, and the new role in securing consistency across all British policies affecting development as promising steps. The DAC also noted that in focusing its efforts on the eradication of extreme poverty, DFID, like its DAC partners, will need to emphasize the shaping of its programmes and the testing of their outputs with respect to their impact on the poor.
The OECD Development Assistance Committee's 1998 review of Canada's development aid programmes and policies. It finds that in its foreign policy statement Canada in the World, the Canadian government reaffirmed its commitment to playing an active role in international efforts towards global peace and prosperity and set out a range of ambitious goals for the development co-operation programme.
Canada is deploying great efforts to develop coherent responses to global challenges and the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) commended the comprehensive renewal process being undertaken by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to equip itself with the means to tackle its challenging mission. CIDA is among the pioneers in the DAC in redirecting its programmes from a traditional-sector focus to a theme-based approach, concentrating on actual results rather than inputs. These promising efforts deserve careful monitoring and should yield valuable lessons for other donors.
The reach and depth of Canada's international involvement -- clearly rooted in the country's values, interests and capabilities -- have, however, been constrained by public sector expenditure cuts, implemented in response to Canada's public debt burden. The Committee expressed concern that successive reductions in Canada's aid budget could affect Canada's ability to meet expectations, both at home and internationally.
The similarities and differences between the transition experiences of the Central European countries and the People's Republic of China are often, wrongly, taken as alternative approaches to the same problem. In reality, there is great complexity, not only in the environments of these two great regions -- for China is as big as a region by itself -- but also within them and, therefore, great complexity in the transition process itself.
The chapters in this volume, originally produced as papers for a joint OECD Development Centre/CEPR/CEPII Conference in Budapest, examine and contrast the experience of the different jurisdictions within which transition is underway. The authors concentrate on three, broad areas of commonality: public finance; foreign trade regime; and financial intermediation and a critical chapter synthesizes their findings at the end of each part. Differences do, of course, emerge, but so do similarities, leading to general policy conclusions applicable to all transition societies.
The OECD Development Assistance Committee's 1998 review of Germany's development aid policies and programmes. It finds that the German aid programme is one of the largest in the world, and it is managed with great expertise and skill. It is strongly oriented towards the partnership principle. The three basic objectives of German aid are poverty reduction, protection of the environment and natural resources and education and training. Poverty reduction, gender and the protection of the environment are cross-cutting tasks permeating all German aid activities.
Since the last review of its development co-operation programme by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee in 1995, Germany has taken several measures to improve the quality and effectiveness of its aid. These measures include:
- the reformulation of the concept for development policy; - the establishment of guidelines for the integration of poverty reduction and gender into all project and programme design; - the conception and implementation of development-oriented emergency assistance programmes, including conflict resolution activities; - a new approach to evaluation; - decentralisation of the German technical assistance agency (GTZ); and the establishment of field offices by the financial co-operation agency (KfW); - more systematic relations with non-governmental organisations.
At the same time, there are still significant challenges in adapting a complex multi-institutional management structure to evolving needs for policy-based, co-ordinated programmes, and also in overcoming persistent pressures on the budget. The volume of German aid for developing countries has been falling significantly in recent years. As a share of GNP, ODA net disbursements fell from 0.42 per cent in 1990 to 0.28 per cent in 1997. Assistance for the reform process in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union also declined sharply in 1996 and 1997.
The OECD Development Assistance Committee's 1998 review of the US development aid policies and programmes. It finds that after a period of declining support, the United States has in recent years worked to strengthen both political and public confidence in its foreign assistance programmes. USAID's new Strategic Plan, issued in September 1997, aims at clear results through its support of developing and transitional countries' efforts to achieve sustained economic and social progress and to share more fully in resolving global problems. An ambitious effort has been made to link the reform of aid management to clearer goals and stronger partnerships. Nevertheless, the volume of resources devoted by the United States to official development assistance has continued its downward trend. Measured as a percentage of GNP, the United States now provides the lowest amount, by far, of any Member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC).
At its triennial review of the United States' aid policies and programmes on 6 April 1998, the DAC welcomed the measures that have been taken and looked forward to the full impact of the reforms and initiatives that have been launched. After serious international concern over recent years about diminishing funding and staffing in the United States programme, there are welcome first indications of strengthening budgets for aid to developing countries, confirmed by President Clinton's recent commitment to seek to increase the budget for African aid to its historically high levels.
It is important that the United States pursue pro-development policies on a broad range of issues. Thus, the review gives special attention to the work of USAID in the areas of democracy, participation, governance, dealing with conflict and disasters, as well as the Transition Initiative, set up to help the United States respond to the needs falling between relief and development. Trade policy is also highlighted, as are the United States' multilateral contributions, and its role in promoting gender equality.
Members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) have long recognised that sustainable development must reflect the needs of women and men. These Guidelines from 1998 aim to advance gender issues in their development co-operation programmes, furthering the contribution of the DAC Expert Group on Women in Development to bringing gender issues to the fore.
The European Community (EC) is the world's second largest multilateral channel for development assistance (after the World Bank). Its combined programmes are the fifth-largest among the 22 Members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), and EC programmes have grown an average 3.3 per cent annually over the past five years, while the combined effort of DAC countries declined by 4.7 per cent annually. The Community's allocation of resources to lower income countries has not kept pace, however, with the overall growth of the ODA budget over recent years.
EC programmes operate within a complex organisation and management structure, and Brussels faces serious challenges of implementation in adapting its operations to achieve agreed development objectives. There have been important steps in the evolution of the European Commission structures: a Common Service has been created to implement co-operation activities for the four Directorates General. But there is still a need to strengthen the capacity of delegations in the field to work fully with partners in advancing local ownership and co-ordination.
The EC has a strong role to play in improving the coherence of policies affecting developing countries. The report analyses this question in fields such as agriculture, trade, fisheries agreements and Community fishing fleet subsidies. Co-ordination with other donors also seems to be improving, which bodes well for better overall partnerships between donors and partner countries.
In 1998, the development co-operation policy of the following DAC Member countries will be reviewed: Canada, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, and the United States.
This 1999 edition of OECD's annual Development Co-operation Report documents some of the progress achieved and underway in the area of development aid. It tracks DAC Members’ efforts -- qualitative and quantitative -- to move ahead with the implementation of partnership strategies. Policy progress underway and expectations for further action are examined alongside the disturbing picture of further decline in 1997 in aid flows from the larger donors and, for the first time in this decade, an aggregate decline in private flows to the whole range of developing countries.