OECD / OCDE Forum 2003

"Grow, Develop, Prosper"

The Fourth OECD / OCDE Forum that was held in Paris on 28th and 29th April this year wasn't really a disappointment in terms of it's lack in presenting solutions to the global economic recession, but rather that it was remarkably lacking of new ideas to put forward for us all to ponder, and believe in for the next ten years.

The OECD has been called a think tank, a monitoring agency, a rich man's club and an non-academic university…and it really turns out to be all of the above. But this time, it sounded and felt even more like a rich man's club than ever. Even if one does not judge the organisation in a developing world's perspective, it did seem rather odd that the only speaker representative of the African continent was to be Magnus L. Kpapkol, CEO of the National Planning Commission of Nigeria, who did not to deliver his speech as he unfortunately failed to turn up at the conference.

Tanzanian Ambassador to France H.E. Mwapachu was in the audience attending the conference and he was also surprised at the lack of speakers representing his continent. Talking about development and growth without getting the most interested party's perspectives on the matter is like planning a city without the input of its future inhabitants. But then, it happens all the time…

It remains that the first debate on "Diverging Economic Destinies" was refreshingly pessimistic on the future of the global economy. Clyde V. Prestowitz, President of the American Economic Strategy Institute confirmed, in case we had missed it, that in the last decade, there had been an even greater disparity between the developing and the developed worlds, with just one exception: China. This excellent orator went on to back up this statement by declaring that "we cannot count on the U.S. to maintain global growth". Indeed, the U.S. seems to be living beyond its means and spending more than it produces. Consequently, the U.S. is counting on China and Japan for loans and credit, which are in turn maintained by the sheer determination of both those countries to maintain their export levels to the U.S. so that the Americans can happily carry on with their buying and spending habits.

All in all, the general conclusion of that particular debate was that until now, the World Bank and various other NGO's had told the developing countries that they should democratise and all would fall in place with investments coming in as a consequence. It did not happen: countries in Latin America and Africa didn't really benefit concretely and significantly from those seemingly obvious directives. China, on the other hand, did not democratise, and has largely been the current recipient of all major international investments.
So…one of the questions put forward by the conference was whether China could save the global economy, provided that SARS does not create more havoc. One wonders… but the speakers seemed to think so.
From our correspondent in Paris, Clara Francillon, May 9th 2003