Bribery and Corruption
The G20 Anti-Corruption Plan entrusts to the OECD Working Group on
Bribery a key role in engaging with all G20 countries concerning the
standards of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, focusing particularly
on those G20 countries which are not yet Parties to the Convention.
Furthermore, the G20 Anti-corruption Working Group tasked the OECD
to carry out specific reports and materials.
In this context, BIAC
participated in a G20 French Presidency/OECD High-Level Conference
on “Joining Forces against Corruption: G20 Business and Government”
on 27-28 April 2011. BIAC has also been contributing to the
development of an anti-corruption compliance handbook for the
private sector (under preparation), which was a specific request by
the G20 to OECD and other international organisations. BIAC
Chairman, Mr. Charles Heeter, supported by the Chair of the BIAC
Bribery and Corruption Task Force, has been actively contributing as
a member to the B20 Anti-corruption Working Group. This work
includes the preparation of the final report and policy
recommendations for the B20 Cannes Summit on 1-3 November to which
Mr. Heeter and BIAC Secretary General, Mr. Asami, shall participate.
Commodity Price Volatility and Food Security
The G20 Seoul Summit tasked the OECD and several other international
organisations to develop options on how to better mitigate and
manage the risks associated with the price volatility of food and
other agriculture commodities. This led to the development of a
joint report, coordinated by the OECD and the FAO, which provided
the basis on which G20 Agriculture Ministers developed an Action
Plan during their meeting on 22-23 June. Immediately prior to the
G20 Agriculture Ministers’ meeting, the BIAC Food & Agriculture
Committee publicly released a
comprehensive paper
setting out the OECD business community’s perspectives on food price
volatility. Looking forwards, BIAC shall continue to contribute to
OECD activities in this area, including through active participation
in the OECD Global Forum on Agriculture on 28 November whose focus
shall be on this topic.
Development
The G20 Seoul Summit tasked the
OECD to carry out specific work in six out of the nine pillars of
the Multi-Year Action Plan on Development: domestic resource
mobilisation; human resource development; food security; trade;
investment and job creation; and knowledge sharing. The OECD also
leads the tracking of overseas development aid (ODA) flows and
pledges, and its DAC Working Party on Aid Effectiveness is leading
work towards the Fourth High-Level Forum (HLF-4) on Aid
Effectiveness (Busan, 29 November - 1 December 2011).
BIAC welcomes
that the G20 Seoul Summit and the HLF-4 in Busan take a broader
approach to development that goes “beyond aid” to also include the
important role to be played by the private sector. In response, and
considering preparations for an OECD Development Strategy to be
presented in spring 2012, BIAC has
created a network
on development (currently with over 30 members) which is pooling
expertise from various BIAC committees and task forces in order to
actively contribute to OECD work on development.
Employment and
Social Policies
The G20 Labour ministers met on April 2010 in
Washington, and on 26 September 2011 in Paris. While the ILO and the
OECD have worked together on the G20 labour activities, BIAC and IOE
have similarly worked together to provide private sector input.
Following an initial meeting with the French Labour Minister to
discuss priorities, BIAC and IOE submitted a
joint statement
to G20 at the 7 April meeting of Employment Senior Officers,
submitted a
paper
and participated in the 23
May G20 High-Level Conference on Policy Coherence, and again
submitted a
statement
to a consultation with
G20 Labour Ministers on the occasion of the 26-27 September G20
Labour Ministerial.
Environment and Energy - Fossil Fuel Subsidies
and Climate Finance
Further to a G20 request to OECD, IEA and other
international organisations to work further on phasing out fossil
fuel subsidies, a joint report shall be submitted to G20 Leaders in
Cannes. BIAC has contributed views for further research in this
area. The OECD is also contributing to the G20 agenda on climate
change financing which is a key issue in current and future climate
negotiations. BIAC has therefore submitted a
paper
to the OECD outlining private sector views on this issue and
summarizing the conditions needed to encourage private sector
investment.
Financial Sector Reform
On the occasion of their 19-20
February 2011 meeting in Paris, the G20 Finance Ministers and
Central Bank Governors called on the OECD, the Financial Stability
Board (FSB) and other relevant international organisations to
develop common principles on consumer protection in the field of
financial services. BIAC actively contributed to the drafting of
these principles over recent months, which were subsequently
supported by G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors on
14-15 October. In addition, the BIAC Finance Task Force, in
co-operation with the BIAC Consumer Policy Task Force, developed a
paper on financial consumer protection which
was distributed at a G20 French Presidency/OECD High-Level Seminar
on 14 October. BIAC actively participated in a panel session of this
event.
Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth
The
OECD’s annual “Going for Growth” exercise, which focuses on
structural reform priorities in OECD and major emerging economies,
contributes to the G20 Mutual Assessment Process (MAP) under the G20
Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth. The BIAC
Economic Policy Committee has been regularly commenting on draft
chapters of the “Going for Growth” publications through biannual
consultations with the OECD Working Party on Macro-Economic and
Structural Policy Analysis. BIAC is also currently undertaking a
survey [1] of BIAC member and observer
organisations’ perceptions on the degree of implementation of “Going
for Growth” national reform priorities in their respective countries
over the period 2007-2011, the results of which shall be submitted
to the OECD Secretariat as input to the 2012 “Going for Growth”
report.
Green Growth
G20 leaders committed to support country-led
green growth policies that promote environmentally sustainable
global growth along with employment creation. Building on its
economic strength, the OECD could make a useful contribution by
providing analysis on how to make growth and “greening” mutually
supportive. BIAC
contributed actively to the
OECD Green Growth Strategy, which was delivered at the Ministerial
Council Meeting in May 2011, where it was welcomed as a strategy for
growth. BIAC also welcomed OECD’s in-depth analysis on the role of
innovation and technology for green growth, underlining the
importance of an enabling policy environment that is crucial for the
development and deployment of clean technologies across sectors.
Taxation
The OECD Global Forum on
Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes, composed
of over 100 countries, is the multilateral framework tasked by G20
to report on ways to improve the effectiveness of exchanges of tax
information. The OECD Tax and Development Task Force also
contributes to the G20 development pillar on domestic resource
mobilisation. BIAC supports the OECD Global Forum as well as efforts
to broaden OECD co-operation on tax with emerging and developing
economies, which is critical to supporting the relevance of OECD
international tax standards. In addition, BIAC has engaged in the
work of the OECD Tax and Development Task Force and contributes to
work on transfer pricing, transparency, and capacity building with
the objective of supporting development of sound and effective tax
administration. BIAC is committed to providing technical assistance,
for example in developing effective transfer pricing frameworks.
This work also fosters greater accountability on the side of tax
administrations. BIAC
submitted a note on this work at OECD to the
Committee on Fiscal Affairs in April.
[1] According to preliminary responses received as of 31 October, it appears that BIAC member and observer organisations support
nearly 90% of the OECD’s Going for Growth reform priorities, yet only 3% of the reform priorities are considered by business to have
been fully implemented by governments since 2007, 68% partly implemented, and 29% not implemented at all.
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