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Statement by the President Following Ratification of Convention Establishing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

March 23, 1961

ON BEHALF of the United States, I have ratified the convention establishing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. I have done so with great satisfaction, and with expectations that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development will become one of the principal institutions through which we pursue the great aim of consolidating the Atlantic Community. As I said in my Inaugural Address, "United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do--for we dare hot meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder."

In giving its advice and consent to this act of ratification, the United States Senate has affirmed the intention of the United States to enter upon a new era of cooperative enterprise with our Atlantic partners. We face a broad spectrum of common economic problems.

And OECD should prove a useful forum in which the member states can consider and act together on a number of the vital questions.

Among these challenging problems, none is more urgent than that of helping the less developed countries in their quest for economic growth and stability. The countries represented in OECD have a common interest, and a common responsibility in this task. For they are among those fortunate enough to have earned the capital and the skills required for such programs. And they share with all humanity the hope and determination that the less developed peoples will succeed in their valiant efforts to achieve sustained economic progress.

Next week the Development Assistance Group, which is soon to become the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD, will meet in London. As an indication of the importance I attach to all phases of the work of OECD, I have instructed George W. Ball, our Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, to represent the United States at this meeting.

The subject matter of this meeting represents one of the central tasks of OECD. I look forward to the development of joint approaches, and joint solutions, in which each of the member countries will assume its fair share of our common responsibility. I am confident that this meeting will represent a substantial forward step in this effort.

Note: The text of the convention is published in the Department of State Bulletin (vol. 44, p.11)

John F. Kennedy, Statement by the President Following Ratification of Convention Establishing the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/236186

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