CONTENTS No 299 Q2 2014
READERS’ VIEWS
GOVERNANCE
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Politics and the trust conundrum Carne Ross, Founder and Executive Director, Independent Diplomat
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Business brief: Sodexo on how to stop wasting food
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Economic outlook: Achieving a resilient recovery
Healthy retirement ages; Germany’s tax choice; Inaccessible open data; Retweets
EDITORIAL 3
Building an inclusive, resilient and responsible world Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD
EDUCATION AND SKILLS
NEWS BRIEF 4-5
Global economy faces slower future-; -top earners capture more of income; Soundbites; Economy; Country roundup; Health spending starts to rise; Financing conditions tough for SMEs; Development’s productivity gap; Plus ça change...
SPOTLIGHT: RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS CONDUCT 7
Corporate leaders: Your supply chain is your responsibility Roel Nieuwenkamp, Chair, OECD Working Party on Responsible Business Conduct 9 Corporate social responsibility: Emerging good practice for a new era Jane Nelson, Director, CSR Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School 9 Still lives 11 Ready-made garments in Bangladesh: No longer a forgotten sector Khadija Farhana, Freelance Journalist, Dhaka, Bangladesh 12-14 Which way forward? Roundtable of government, business, labour and civil society, with: Lilianne Ploumen, Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Co-operation, The Netherlands; Marine de Carné, Ambassador for Corporate Social Responsibility, France; Winand Quaedvlieg, Chair of BIAC’s Investment Committee; Philip Jennings, General Secretary, UNI Global Union; Janos Pasztor, Acting Executive Director, Conservation, WWF International
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22 Business brief: ONLYGLASS on how the disadvantaged can succeed in business
TRADE AND TECHNOLOGY 23 Technology-powered trade: Energising sustainable development in international trade Saemundur Finnbogason, Research Student, Lund University, Sweden, and Hanne Melin, Policy Strategy Counsel EMEA, eBay Inc.
OECD.ORG
ISSN 0029-7054 Tel.: +33 (0) 1 45 24 80 70 Fax: +33 (0) 1 45 24 82 10 sales@oecd.org Founded in 1962. The magazine of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD Publications 2 rue André Pascal 75775 Paris cedex 16, France observer@oecd.org www.oecd.org
Valuing teachers, page 21
26 OECD Forum: Let’s make wisdom matter! 27 2014: Ministerial Council Statement 29 Recent speeches by Angel Gurría; List of OECD ambassadors 30 Calendar; Frankie.org
BOOKS 31 32 33 37
Review: Bitcoin: More than a bit part? Current bestsellers Recently published Focus on business ethics and corporate governance 38 Review: Myanmar invests in a new future
Japanese Foreign Minister Kishida and OECD SecretaryGeneral Gurría: Ministerial Council Statement, page 27
38 OECD Observer Crossword
DATABANK 39 The economics of happiness; Air pollution kills 40 Is there more to life than football? “Transformar o Jogo Bonito em Vida Bonita” Anthony Gooch 42 Main economic indicators 44 Tolerance in crisis
ORDER FORM… ORDER FORM
www.oecdobserver.org © OECD June 2014
Dutch Minister Ploumen leads our Roundtable on responsible business conduct, page 12
Teaching class Andreas Schleicher
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Brazil’s Minister Rebelo and Pelé: More to life than football, page 40
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