This article examines the OECD's role in the construction of education policies in Portugal after the Second World War up to the Carnation Revolution (1974). For a large part of the twentieth century (1926-1974), Portugal lived under a nationalist dictatorship, with elements that were on a par with the European fascism. After analysing the genesis of the OECD (OEEC, as originally established), this article describes how participating in the Mediterranean Regional Programme, designed and conducted by the OECD/OEEC between 1960 and 1968, was important to integrate Portugal in the "western" sphere of influence, and enabled the creation of the basis for an education policy which would represent the most important source of mandate and legitimacy for the "developmentalist" positions and proposals arising from the technocratic sectors of the regime which, increasingly, gained influence in the economic departments and in the offices of education planning and labour force training in the 1960s and early 1970s.