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Norway has made progress on the path towards green growth over the past decade. The country is a frontrunner in many environmental areas and invests heavily in technological development and innovation to support its green transition. It set many ambitious national environmental targets across all sectors, including for climate mitigation; Norway aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2030. While not a member of the European Union, Norway has aligned its action with many EU regulations and goals, sometimes more stringently than members. Despite progress in many areas, the country still faces multiple challenges, including sustainable consumption patterns and biodiversity protection. The review provides 30 recommendations to help Norway further improve its environmental performance, with a special focus on sustainable land use and biodiversity management. This is the fourth Environmental Performance Review of Norway. It provides an independent, evidence-based evaluation of the country’s environmental performance over the past decade.

The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts peer reviews of individual members once every five to six years. Reviews seek to improve the quality and effectiveness of members’ development co-operation, highlighting good practices and recommending improvements. Portugal mobilises its whole of government expertise with a strong focus on partner country ownership. Building on long-standing and close bilateral relations, it concentrates its funding on countries most in need. Through effective international advocacy, the country champions triangular co-operation and has fostered agreement amongst European Union (EU) members on issues such as strengthening Team Europe’s commitment to human development when it held the Presidency of the EU Council. However, Portugal can make more out of the wide participation of state and non-state actors in its development co-operation. This peer review provides a set of recommendations to improve co-ordination across government, pull bilateral efforts together, focus more on outcomes and take action to increase official development assistance (ODA).

The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts peer reviews of individual members once every five to six years. Reviews seek to improve the quality and effectiveness of members’ development co-operation, highlighting good practices and recommending improvements. Spain has put the 2030 Agenda at the centre of its foreign policy and development co-operation. It works in alliances to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, internationally and in partner countries. Spain is valued for its work in horizontal and inclusive partnerships, and its ability to mobilise public sector expertise to capture and share knowledge. As Spain embarks on a comprehensive reform of its development co-operation strategy and architecture, this peer review provides a set of recommendations to improve strategic steering, streamline its administrative framework, strengthen human resources and fully mobilise its financial co-operation.

Finland has a strong reputation as a leader in environmental policy and sustainable development. It committed to become carbon neutral by 2035 and to pioneer the world’s first circular economy. However, it is not fully on track to meet its ambitious goals. Greenhouse gas emissions fell in the last decade, but they need to decline at a much faster pace to meet the target. Waste generation, material consumption and nutrient losses to water bodies have continued to rise. Agriculture and a large forestry sector exert pressures on the country’s biodiversity. Targeted policy measures are needed to provide adequate incentives, boost investment and innovation and steer the economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis towards the green transition. Finland should move from good strategy making to effective and coherent implementation. It needs to get the right policies in place, to secure sufficient resources and ensure continued and broad public consensus. This is the third Environmental Performance Review of Finland. It evaluates progress towards green growth and sustainable development, with a special chapter focusing on climate change mitigation and well-being.

Mountainous areas are at the forefront of climate change. This working paper presents approaches to strengthening the resilience of human and natural systems in mountainous areas against the impacts of climate change. Chapter 1 provides an overview of climate-related hazards to ecosystems and communities in mountainous areas, especially in developing countries, and their exposure and vulnerability to those hazards. The chapter then examines various ways governments and development co‑operation providers can strengthen the climate resilience of mountain communities and ecosystems. Chapter 2 presents the case of the Indian state of Uttarakhand.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need for better tracking and monitoring domestic and international investments in health, including on pandemic preparedness. The total official support for sustainable development (TOSSD) framework can help, as it captures both cross‑border flows to developing countries, such as international assistance, and domestic contributions to global public goods, such as pandemic preparedness. This pilot study tests the current TOSSD methodology for tracking the global financing for health, and explores how TOSSD can be shaped to best respond to the emerging information needs of the international community.

Achieving sustainable, equitable and resilient societies is humankind’s challenge for the 21st century. In pursuit of this ambition, the international development community needs a shared, universal framework, within which to work more closely together. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the obvious answer, but a number of technical, political and organisational challenges prevent development co-operation providers from using them as their common results framework. Based on seven case studies, this publication identifies two critical factors and one game changer that can help overcome those challenges. First, country leadership needs to be supported by the international community. Second, development partners need to change their set-ups in order to deliver on the SDGs. Finally, by forcing governments and development partners to reset their long-term strategies and rethink their internal systems, the COVID-19 pandemic provides them with a rare opportunity to use the SDG framework collectively as a roadmap to recovery: this can be a game changer.