CONTENTS No 293 Q4 2012
READERS’ VIEWS 2
Corporate tax responsibility; Labour advice
EDITORIAL 3
From the information revolution to a knowledge-based world Angel Gurría
NEWS BRIEF 4
Crisis drives up social spending–as tax revenues rise; Soundbites; Economy; Country roundup; Rebalancing act; Pensions struggle; Plus ça change… From November 1962
SOCIETY 6 8
Women in work: The Norwegian experience Sigbjørn Johnsen, Minister of Finance, Norway Israel reports progress Interview with Sharon Kedmi, Director General of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, Israel
SPECIAL FOCUS: POLICYMAKING AND THE INFORMATION REVOLUtION 11-15 Policymaking and the information revolution 12 Mandela’s cell number 14 Trading in facts Ken Ash 15 Education for policymakers Barbara Ischinger 16 Managing information and communications in a fast-changing world Lester Rodriques and Jim Black 17 Can big data deliver on its promise? Martine Durand 18 Information society: Which way now? Andy Wyckoff 19 Getting to know each other: The OECD and Latin America José Antonio Ardavín
www.oecdobserver.org © OECD December 2012 ISSN 0029-7054 Tel.: +33 (0) 1 45 24 80 66 Fax: +33 (0) 1 45 24 82 10 sales@oecd.org
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Combating terrorist financing in the information age Rick McDonell, Executive Secretary, Financial Action Task Force Africa.radio Roman Rollnick, Chief Editor, Advocacy, Outreach and Communications, UN-Habitat Is evidence evident? Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser to the President of the European Commission News that’s fit to post Monique Villa, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation Asia’s information revolution John West, Executive Director, Asian Century Institute The changing art of language René Prioux Found in translation Ad sense Interview with Richard Huntington, Strategy Director, Saatchi & Saatchi How the world wide web was won Robert Cailliau, Computer Scientist and CoFounder of the World Wide Web, and James Gillies, Director of Communications, CERN Face to Facebook with civil society Phil Evans, Senior Consultant, FIPRA The OECD Observer story Beyond blogonomics Henry Copeland, CEO, Blogads and Pressflex.com Last word: Up in the air? Rolf Alter
Special Focus: Policymaking and the information revolution, from page 11
Is knowledge management up in the air? Page 37
ECONOMY 40 41 42
Policy can brighten the economic outlook Pier Carlo Padoan Spanish immigrants Energy efficiency: A true alternative Interview with Fatih Birol, Chief Economist and Director of Global Energy Economics, International Energy Agency (IEA)
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A plea for euro solidarity, page 44
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