Reports

Nearly three years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a succession of mutually reinforcing crises and a challenging global context are putting the multilateral development system under pressure. Multilateral development finance is stretched across an ever expanding list of priorities, ranging from humanitarian crisis response to the provision of global and regional public goods. The urgent nature of these crises requires renewed efforts to strengthen the financial capacity of the multilateral development system but should not divert attention from other parts of the reform agenda, such as the need to reduce the fragmentation of the multilateral architecture. This third edition of the Multilateral Development Finance report presents recent trends in multilateral development finance in order to inform decisions by the members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) on their strategic engagement with multilateral organisations. It presents an overview of challenges and ongoing reform efforts, and examines the evolution of financial flows to, and from, multilateral organisations. The report is supplemented by online statistics on DAC members’ multilateral contributions, available in the Development Co-operation Profiles.

Rural regions in Colombia have untapped potential to boost wealth and well-being in the country. Despite remarkable economic growth over the last two decades, Colombia’s development policy needs to increase its focus on rurality, as regional inequalities remain high by OECD standards and structural challenges still prevent greater development in rural places. This report assesses trends, challenges and opportunities of rural Colombia and examines the country’s rural development policy. It offers recommendations to mobilise rural assets and improve rural well-being with a focus on: strengthening multi-government coordination and policy implementation; enhancing transport and broadband connectivity as well as accessibility to quality education and health and; improving land use management in rural Colombia.

Cette Feuille de route constitue un suivi du rapport au G20 de 2021 sur les pays en développement et le Cadre inclusif de l’OCDE et du G20 sur l’érosion de la base d’imposition et le transfert de bénéfices (BEPS). Elle tient compte des progrès réalisés depuis 2021 et établit les principales priorités. Le rapport présente également une feuille de route permettant d’orienter les initiatives prises par les membres du G20 intéressés et d’autres parties prenantes, afin d’aider les pays en développement à optimiser les bénéfices d’un engagement multilatéral en matière de fiscalité internationale, et de capitaliser sur les avancées réalisées en termes de politique et d’administration fiscales visant à soutenir la réalisation des Objectifs de développement durable.

The consequences of climate change in developing countries are worsening fast: many ecosystems will shortly reach points of irreversible damage, and socio-economic costs will continue to rise. To alleviate the future impacts on populations and economies, policy makers are looking for the spaces where they can make the greatest difference. This report argues that intermediary cities in developing countries are such spaces. Indeed, in the context of fast population growth and urbanisation, these small and medium-sized cities silently play an essential role in the rapid transformation of human settlements, not least by supporting the massive flows of population, goods and services between rural and metropolitan areas. Most of those intermediary cities are still growing: now is therefore the time to influence their dynamics, and thereby the entire design of urbanisation in those regions, in ways that limit the exposure of urban dwellers to climate shocks and avoid carbon lock-in. To that end, based on fresh evidence and policy analysis on the challenges faced by these agglomerations in the context of climate change, the report makes the case for new development approaches to avoid the unsustainable paths followed by too many cities in the recent past.

Le Comité d’aide au développement (CAD) de l’OCDE mène tous les cinq à six ans un examen par les pairs qui passe en revue les efforts de coopération pour le développement de chacun de ses membres. Ces examens visent à améliorer la qualité et l’efficacité de leur coopération pour le développement, en mettant en évidence les bonnes pratiques et en recommandant des améliorations. Les États-Unis ont endossé un rôle de chef de file en apportant des contributions d’APD substantielles en réaction aux crises multiples. L’aide extérieure est programmée et acheminée par 21 organismes publics américains. USAID intègre systématiquement la collaboration, l’apprentissage et l’adaptation dans les cycles de ses programmes, et elle s’attache à améliorer la diversité, l’équité et l’inclusion en se faisant le champion des approches pilotées à l’échelon local. Cet examen par les pairs formule, à l’intention des États-Unis, un ensemble de recommandations visant à atténuer les répercussions négatives transnationales de leurs politiques publiques, à encourager des dotations budgétaires plus flexibles concordant avec les besoins, à adopter une approche plus claire vis-à-vis des partenariats multilatéraux, et à doter leur institution de financement du développement des moyens qui lui permettront de mener à bien sa mission. Il recommande aux États-Unis de placer l’efficacité du développement au cœur de l’adaptation au contexte local, de renforcer les ressources humaines, et de prendre en compte la prévention des conflits dans l’ensemble des programmes par pays.

Successive crises including COVID-19, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the climate emergency are exacerbating inequalities between and within countries and stifling progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement. While developed countries deployed historic stimulus packages to build back better, developing countries lacked fiscal and monetary buffers to respond. Countries with the fewest resources face challenging trade-offs between short-term rescue and long-term financing for a sustainable recovery. The SDG financing gap in developing countries grew due to a drop in available resources called upon in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda coupled with rising financing needs. Official Development Assistance (ODA), or aid, played an important role to help narrow the gap, but could not do so on its own. Global crises open a window of opportunity for SDG alignment of broader resources to narrow the gap. Growing trillions in developed countries aim to reduce risks, including environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. However, resources are not reaching the countries most in need. Urgent action is needed to remove bottlenecks for a more equitable and needs-based allocation of sustainable finance.

COP27 will return to Africa for the first time since 2016 to follow up on promises made in Glasgow in 2021 to limit global temperatures to well below 2°C by the end of the century as committed under the Paris Agreement. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) enable each country to pursue a tailored approach under the Paris Agreement, with countries setting their own mitigation and adaptation targets with the aim of increasing ambition with each subsequent submission. This report analyses the NDCs of 17 countries in West Africa on some of the pressing issues to be discussed at COP27, namely the ambition of targets in NDCs, the financing needs related to NDCs and their implementation. The objective of this report is two-fold: to inform COP participants where the region stands on these matters, and to identify opportunities for the region in updating NDCs.

This report represents the second outcome of the collaboration between the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to improve the measurement and analysis of productivity developments across APO and OECD member economies. The report discusses the potential impact of COVID-19 on productivity and examines the role of Multifactor Productivity (MFP) as a major driver of economic growth and changes in living standards. It then identifies the most important factors influencing MFP growth and describes the most important challenges affecting the measurement of each of these factors as well as the estimation of their impact on MFP. The report provides key recommendations to improve the reliability and interpretation of the empirical evidence for economic analysis.