The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development operates from a sprawling campus in Paris's 16th arrondissement, where roughly 1,500 staff members work to shape policy across wealthy nations and beyond. Born from the ashes of World War II as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation in 1948, the institution transformed into the OECD in September 1961 when it expanded beyond Europe to include the United States and Canada, fundamentally shifting its mission from distributing Marshall Plan aid to developing comprehensive economic policy guidance.
Housed partly in the historic Château de la Muette, where its predecessor organisation was headquartered, the OECD maintains additional offices in Boulogne-Billancourt and regional centres in Berlin, Mexico City, Tokyo, and Washington. With an annual budget of approximately 386 million dollars, the organisation functions as what insiders call a reliable arbiter of global economic health, publishing rankings and evaluations that governments and investors monitor closely.
The organisation's current work spans climate adaptation economics, tax cooperation frameworks including global minimum tax standards, and production transformation policies across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Its recent initiatives address business accountability through international guidelines, rural innovation systems, and cooperative resilience. The 2026 Green Growth and Sustainable Development Forum exemplifies this scope, exploring how adaptation investments generate economic benefits while examining job implications across sectors. Beyond economics, the OECD has become a testing ground for multilateral cooperation itself, where peer learning and consensus-building shape policies that governments eventually implement domestically.