Message from: Jennifer Bisping, Deputy Head of Public Affairs, OECDDear Ms. Merete Riisager,The OECD would like to invite you and your fellow members of the Gender Equality Committee to the nextOECD High-Level Parliamentary Seminar,which will take place inParisonWednesday 2 October 2013.Please note that theseminar is scheduled back-to-back withthe enlarged annual debate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Councilof Europeon the activities of the OECD, which will be held onOctober 1 in Strasbourg.On this occasion, the High-Level Parliamentary Seminar will focus on the latesteconomicandemploymentoutlooks, anupdate on the OECD’s work onBEPS(base erosion and profit-shifting),migration, well-being,and transparency andintegrity inlobbying.Please find attached a draft programme, which will also be posted and regularly updated onwww.oecd.org/parliamentarians.The seminar is open to Members of Parliament as well as staffers. It offers an exceptional opportunity forparliamentarians to exchange views with their peers and OECD experts on a range of key issues.We would be very grateful if you could share the invitation with your fellow members of the Gender Equality Committeewho might be interested in attending.We hope you and your colleagues will be able to join us for this event. If you would like to sign up or if you have anyqueries you can contact myself or my colleague Silvia Terrón; [[email protected]; Tel: +33 (0) 1 45 24 95 72].Furthermore, I would like to draw your attention to some of the recent events held between the OECD andparliamentarians:On 5 June 2013, theParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’sSub-Committee on relations with the OECDand EBRDexchanged views with the OECD around the Organisation’s work on BEPS, tax transparency and theOECD’s New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) initiative.

The OECD held aHigh-Level Parliamentary Seminar hosted by the Swedish Parliamentin Stockholm on 17-18June 2013 entitled “FromEconomic Turbulence to Inclusive Growth: Lessons from the Nordic Model?”This is thesecond OECD Parliamentary Seminar “on the road” - a series of annual seminars held in a member country, in additionto the two seminars held in Paris. The Seminar was attended by 45 Members of Parliament and 17 staffers from Austria,Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal,Serbia, Slovenia and Sweden; as well as the IMF. The presentations of the speakers can be found on the Seminar’swebpage.A summary of the sessions will also be available shortly.

On 18 June the Director of the OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate, Ken Ash, addressed theEuropean ParliamentInternational Trade Committeeto present OECD work onTrade in Value Added.For more information about this jointOECD-WTO initiative on how to measure the value added by each country in the production of goods and services thatare consumed worldwide please go tothis website.

Members of Parliament participated in the

OECD Forum on Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying

held in Paris on27-28 June. The Forum discussed how to win back trust in the decision-making process and the key challenges indesigning and implementing a system that ensures compliance in a cost-effective way. More information about theOECD work on lobbying can be foundhere.