ADB President, OECD Secretary General Agree to Deepen Cooperation Toward Robust and Sustainable Recovery
Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Masatsugu Asakawa and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Secretary General José Ángel Gurría today discussed their respective institution’s support for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response, and agreed to further strengthen ongoing collaboration on key areas to ensure robust and sustainable recovery from the pandemic such as economic analysis, domestic resource mobilization (DRM), international tax cooperation (ITC), and anticorruption.
In particular ADB and OECD will deepen its collaboration through the Regional Hub on DRM and ITC that ADB announced at its Annual Meeting in September this year, to be launched officially in 2021 in collaboration with development partners including OECD and ADB members.
The Regional Hub is expected to serve multiple functions such as institutional and capacity development, exchange of information, knowledge sharing across partners and developing economies; and collaboration and development coordination. As a specific area of collaboration, Mr. Asakawa and Mr. Gurría agreed to work together through the Regional Hub to promote ADB members to join the Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), and the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes.
“I am pleased ADB and OECD are collaborating on a range of issues across the global economic governance architecture, for which OECD has become a key pillar in its almost 60 years of existence,” Mr. Asakawa said. “Under the Regional Hub, we look forward to enhancing our partnership and working together to raise DRM and ITC as key agendas across Asia and the Pacific.”
Other recent collaborations with OECD include the Anticorruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific, where ADB and OECD serve as Secretariat to the Initiative and guide the formulation of strategies and work programs; a knowledge partnership around the 2020 edition of the Asian Water Development Outlook to be launched on 15 December; and a joint ADB-OECD Report on Leveraging Technology and Innovation for Disaster Risk Management and Financing, which was presented in September 2020 at the margins of the APEC Finance Ministers meeting.
ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty. Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members—49 from the region.