USCIB CEO and President Peter Robinson was in Paris January 15 as part of the business delegation at the annual Business at OECD Liaison Committee Meeting (LCM) consultation with OECD Ministers. The focus of this meeting was on the OECD’s “Going Digital” work and titled “Expanding Digital Opportunities: Agreeing Priority Actions”. Robinson served as a moderator of one of three concurrent panels composed of business leaders, OECD Ambassadors and OECD staff.
Robinson’s session was “Future Proofing to ensure broader societal success” and engendered discussion around two questions: What approaches best enable dynamic policy-making, and where are they most needed? And what does good multi-stakeholder collaboration look like in this context?
“I see the latter being a big component of the former and was able to point to OECD’s general leadership in multi-stakeholder engagement, which has been setting an example at a time when some other international organizations seem to be not as open to business involvement,” reflected Robinson.
“The ambassadors on my panel seemed to truly appreciate the opportunity to dialogue with business in this way, and their contributions consisted of a mix of reactions to Business at OECD’s position paper and examples of initiatives in their own countries—including from Italy, Japan, and Latvia—reflecting multi-stakeholder engagement in the digital age.”
OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria and Business at OECD Chair Phil O’Reily circulated among the panels and shared leadership of the plenary sessions. Business at OECD Secretary General Russell Mills also served as a moderator, as did Julie Brill, Microsoft Corporate vice president and deputy general counsel, who chairs the Business at OECD Committee on Digital Economy Policy. USCIB Board member and Business at OECD Vice Chair Rick Johnston was also on hand, as were other USCIB member executives from firms including IBM, Cooley LLP, Google and PwC.
OECD will hold its “Going Digital” Summit March 11-12 in Paris. The USCIB/BIAC/OECD “Going Digital: OECD Insights for a Changing World” will be held on March 25-26 in Washington, D.C. The annual OECD Ministerial will be held May 22-23 in Paris, at which Digital will figure centrally.
