  We present the achievements of the last years of the experimental and
theoretical groups working on hadronic cross section measurements at the low
energy e+e- colliders in Beijing, Frascati, Ithaca, Novosibirsk, Stanford and
Tsukuba and on tau decays. We sketch the prospects in these fields for the
years to come. We emphasise the status and the precision of the Monte Carlo
generators used to analyse the hadronic cross section measurements obtained as
well with energy scans as with radiative return, to determine luminosities and
tau decays. The radiative corrections fully or approximately implemented in the
various codes and the contribution of the vacuum polarisation are discussed.
