The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It is a forum of countries describing themselves as committed to democracy and the market economy, providing a platform to compare policy experiences, seeking answers to common problems, identify good practices and coordinate domestic and international policies of its members. The OECD originated in 1948 as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, led by Robert Marjolin of France, to help administer the Marshall Plan. This would be achieved by allocating American financial aid and implementing economic programs for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II, where similar efforts in the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948 of the United States of America, which stipulated the Marshall Plan that had also taken places elsewhere in the world to war-torn Republic of China and post-war Korea, but the American recovery program in Europe was the most successful one.