Ever heard of the acronym OEEC? It stands for Organisation for European Economic Cooperation. Does it ring a bell? Well, what about OECD, the acronym for Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development? The OEEC, established on April 16, 1948, transformed into the OECD on September 30, 1961.

Ever heard of the United Nations? If not, enjoy your visit and stay on the Blue Marble. The UN, established on October 24, 1945, has 193 member States, as well as two non-member observer States, the Holy See and the State of Palestine. The collective 195 countries do not include Chinese Taipei, also known as Taiwan, the Cook Islands and Niue.

The OECD has 38 members, only 29% of which are not European countries. The non- European countries are Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand and the US. It includes the North American Free Trade Agreement countries and 22 European Union (EU) members, except Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Malta and Romania. The OECD excludes the countries of the African continent, the continent of Antarctica and the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

There are no prizes for guessing which of the OEEC or the OECD is the more inclusive organisation. But why, you might ask, the contrasting of the two organisations? Before I get to that, let me remind you of the Bretton Woods institutions, which are the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, commonly known as the World Bank; the International Monetary Fund (IMF); and the fairly recently created World Trade Organisation (WTO). Both the World Bank and the IMF were created in July 1944. The International Trade Organisation was supposed to be created around the same time, but it was only on January 1, 1995, that the WTO was created. This serves to time-date the OECD.

But why the interest in the OECD and the UN? Please wait just a bit longer.

The OECD is an international organisation through which governments work together to find solutions to common challenges, develop global standards, share experiences and identify best practices to promote better policies for better lives.

One of the four purposes of the UN is to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction on the basis of race, sex, language or religion.

As for the interest in the OECD and the UN, in three letters, the answer is t-a-x. On November 22, the UN held a vote to decide whether to initiate the negotiation of a UN Framework Convention to strengthen international tax cooperation. The vote followed a resolution called the ‘Promotion of Inclusive and Effective International Cooperation on Tax Matters at the United Nations’, which was tabled by the Africa Group at the UN General Assembly. Note the words ‘inclusive’, ‘effective’ and ‘international cooperation’.

A Financial Times article published on November 22 and headlined ‘Developing countries secure bigger international tax role for UN’ reported: “Countries at the UN have voted for it to take a greater role in international tax matters, in a move that threatens the ascendancy of the OECD, the body that has led these discussions for decades.” As to what has led to this, the article explained that “developing nations have been pushing for a greater UN role after growing frustrated at global tax negotiations coordinated by the Paris-based OECD” and that, “in 2021, more than 130 countries agreed to a landmark deal aimed at curbing corporate tax avoidance by multinationals [but] developing countries have complained they will receive relatively little revenue from the reforms, compared with richer nations”.

The vote championed by African countries was supported by 125 countries, including the BRICS countries (excluding Russia) and Nigeria. The 48 countries that voted against included the EU members, Japan, Korea, the US and the UK. There were nine abstentions, which included Chile, Colombia, Iceland, Norway, Mexico and Turkey – all OECD members.

Why were the voices of developing and least-developed countries not heard in global tax deliberations until now?