Heads of tax crime investigation in 44 countries, as well as the Financial Action Task Force and World Customs Organisation, have come together this week at Europol Headquarters in the Hague for the second meeting of the OECD Forum of Heads of Tax Crime Investigation.

New guidance from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) will help countries tackle the misuse of corporate entities for money laundering, terrorist financing and other illicit purposes.

Kazakhstan’s new anti-corruption strategy must be better defined, involving key stakeholders, with targeted actions and goals that address the key corruption challenges facing the country, says a new OECD report by the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP).

Widespread corruption was one of the main reasons that led to the change of the political regime in Ukraine in 2014. The new administration pledged to fight corruption, a challenging task in the current context of the economic crisis and military conflict in the East of the country.

Vast amounts are lost to illicit financial flows, including tax evasion, money laundering, bribery and corruption. These crimes threaten the strategic, political and economic interests of both developed and developing countries. In a world of limited resources and increasing complexity, it is essential for government authorities to work closely together in a “whole of government” approach to best address these challenges.

This report takes stock of corporate practices tying business integrity considerations into corporate governance frameworks, strategy and operations. It also assesses what factors influence business decisions to implement business integrity measures in practice. This report is a timely response to a succession of disturbing corporate scandals to which no industry or country appears to be immune.

Ministers and representatives from the 41 State Parties to the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention have reaffirmed their commitment to continued implementation of the Convention and called for robust enforcement of their anti-foreign bribery laws.

9 December 2016, Paris: Held on International Anti-Corruption Day, this roundtable provided an opportunity for governments, the private sector, civil society, and the media, to reflect on the liability of legal persons following more than 15 years of work by the OECD Working Group on Bribery to promote its application for foreign bribery.

The paper summarises views expressed by practitioners at a workshop in Beijing on 13-14 April 2016 with respect to contemporary challenges in international co-operation in corruption cases and possible solutions to mitigate these challenges. It has a practical orientation and is intended to contribute to ongoing dialogue at national and multilateral levels on enhancing international co-operation.

Finland has proactively investigated seven allegations of Finnish individuals or companies paying bribes to foreign public officials since 1999 but needs to address its discouragingly high acquittal rate.

Some 16 years after joining the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, Argentina remains in serious non-compliance.

Drawing on data presented in the 2017 OECD Business and Finance Outlook, this article looks at some of the forces influencing recent economic developments and asks what can be done to ensure a “fairer” global economy.

The Czech Republic must strengthen its efforts to detect, investigate and prosecute foreign bribery. Seventeen years after ratifying the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, the Czech Republic has yet to prosecute a case involving the bribery of foreign public officials.

Effective international co-operation between countries is crucial for the successful investigation, prosecution and sanction of international corruption offences.

Chile must make further progress on key recommendations of the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions, more than three years after its Phase 3 evaluation in March 2014.

Sweden has still not implemented reforms to its Penal Code initially recommended by the OECD Working Group on Bribery in June 2012. Sweden’s legal provisions on corporate liability do not meet the requirements of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.

This report provides a map for strengthening the OECD’s work in combating corruption and promoting integrity. It will help to guide reflection on current and future work, with a view to ensuring that the Organisation's anti-corruption and integrity policies are more coherent, more globally relevant and impactful.

Peru is taking important steps toward fighting corruption and fostering greater transparency and exchange of information by completing the necessary steps to become a Party to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (Anti-Bribery Convention) and the multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

Without adequate investment in skills, people languish on the margins of society, technological progress does not translate into inclusive economic growth, and countries can no longer compete in an increasingly knowledge-based global society, said OECD Secretary-General.

The OECD has launched its Skills Strategy to help governments build economic resilience, boost employment and reinforce social cohesion. Despite the pressure on public finances, spending on education and skills is an investment for the future and must be a priority.

Join around 500 higher education policy-makers, institutional leaders and academic experts active in higher education at the biennial General Conference of the OECD’s Programme for Institutional Management in Higher Education on 17-19 September in Paris.

The high educational attainment level of the Russian population continues to increase. 88% of the adult population have attained at least upper secondary education and 54% have a tertiary qualification.

This seminar will provide an opportunity for participants to share experiences on issues such as the influence of accelerated commercialization of education and a knowledge-based society.

Education is one OECD department that has embraced the information revolution.

How do apprenticeships and other forms of workplace learning help people to make a successful transition from school to work? Global economic competition requires a labour force with a range of mid-level trade, technical and professional skills alongside the high-level skills typically associated with university education.

Students who know how to summarise information tend to perform better in reading. If disadvantaged students used effective learning strategies to the same extent as students from more advantaged backgrounds do, the performance gap between the two groups would be almost 20% narrower.

Knowing the best way to summarise information you read is key to being a proficient reader. In fact, this month’s PISA in Focus suggests that if disadvantaged students – who consistently score lower on PISA assessments than advantaged students -- used the most effective learning strategies to the same extent as students from more advantaged backgrounds do, the performance gap between the two groups would shrink considerably.

The OECD and China have announced that they will expand their cooperation in PISA, following the successful implementation of PISA 2009 and 2012 in Shanghai.

Many countries have implemented reforms to develop and support doctoral studies and postdoctoral research, stressing the crucial role of doctorate students and degree holders in terms of economic growth, innovation and scientific research.

How big should schools be? Is bigger better? Or do all the best things come in small packages? For education systems, the question of how school size influences quality and efficiency has long been an important issue.

The OECD Directorate for Education and Skills helps individuals and nations to identify and develop the knowledge and skills that drive better jobs and better lives, generate prosperity and promote social inclusion. We encourage countries to compare their experiences and learn from each other, and we accompany them in the difficult process of policy implementation.

If there’s one word that encapsulates the desires and aspirations of education stakeholders around the world, it is improvement.

The United Arab Emirates is identified by PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) as one of the most rapidly improving education systems in the world. However its students still perform well below the levels expected in advanced economies.

The Indonesian economy has enjoyed strong and stable growth over the past decade and a half, leading to impressive reductions in poverty and major improvements in living standards. But challenges remain to continue to converge towards higher-income countries, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Indonesia.

Since the mid-1900s, the expansion of higher education systems has opened up opportunities for many students other than those from the elites. Higher education became the main route towards upward social mobility.

Education has become increasingly important worldwide, including politically. Probably the key driver for this is economic – the fundamental role of knowledge and skills in underpinning and maintaining prosperity.

Only in some countries is a larger proportion of immigrant students in schools related to lower student performance – and this relationship is mostly explained by the concentration of disadvantaged students in these schools.

Archived webinar December 17 2015 - Immigrant Students at School: Easing the Journey towards Integration presented by Presented by Andreas Schleicher, Director for the Directorate of Education and Skills, OECD

Today, around 5 million students study and do research in a country other than their own, attracted by the quality of overseas universities and willing to complement their education portfolio with international experience.

Fewer 15-year-olds in East Asian countries reported that they use memorisation than did 15-year-olds in some of the English-speaking countries to whom they are often compared.

Webinar: Andreas Schleicher, Director of the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, presents the findings of Equations and Inequalities - Making Mathematics Accessible to All

The Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), was designed to provide insights into the availability of some of these key skills in society and how they are used at work and at home.

Education’s purpose is to prepare children for a fast-moving, ever-changing world. Teaching faces the additional challenge of classrooms becoming increasingly more culturally diverse. Now, more than ever, this requires an adaptation of current teaching strategies.

More than half a million 15-year-olds took part in the OECD’s latest global education survey, known as PISA. The main focus was on science, an increasingly important part of our economic and social lives.

The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) examines not just what students know in science, reading and mathematics, but what they can do with what they know. Results from PISA show educators and policy makers the quality and equity of learning outcomes achieved elsewhere, and allow them to learn from the policies and practices applied in other countries.

The persistence of social inequities in education – the fact that children of wealthy and highly educated parents tend to do better in school than children from less privileged families – is often seen as a difficult-to-reverse feature of education systems. PISA shows that, rather than assuming that inequality of opportunity is set in stone, school systems can become more equitable over a relatively short time.

Despite increased funding and many reforms, most education systems are still seeking ways to better prepare their students for a world in which technological change and the digital revolution are changing the way we work, live and relate to one another.

Education has transformed over the last 20 years from being a means to an end to becoming a change agent on the battleground to improve the life chances of all individuals, regardless of where they live, their economic status, gender, ability or religious persuasion. Education has been revitalised as the gateway for equal opportunity.

PISA 2015 Results (Volume IV): Students’ Financial Literacy, explores students’ experience with and knowledge about money and provides an overall picture of 15-year-olds’ ability to apply their accumulated knowledge and skills to real-life situations involving financial issues and decisions.

The highlights from the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills