Portugal

The Civic Space Review of Portugal provides an in-depth analysis of the national legal frameworks, policies, institutions, and practices relevant to civic space protection, with an emphasis on harnessing user input to facilitate people-centred public service reforms. The Review assesses three key areas: 1) protecting the civic freedoms and information environment that create the conditions for public service reforms; 2) strengthening stakeholder and citizen participation in the process; and 3) moving towards more inclusive, accessible and people-centred public service design and delivery. The two case studies and concrete recommendations in the review offer a tangible path towards more inclusive, participatory public services that place citizens at their core.

This policy paper provides an analysis of the new the Portuguese Competence Centre for Planning, Policy and Foresight in Public Administration (PlanAPP) and its functions in Portugal, focusing on strategic planning and networking activities. It analyses the role of PlanAPP in aligning and harmonising the strategic planning process and in ensuring evidence-informed, inclusive and co-ordinated strategic planning, particularly through RePLAN, Portugal’s Public Administration Planning and Foresight Services Network. The paper makes recommendations to help Portugal effectively implement the competency centre model, consolidate its strategic planning process, better define and co-ordinate high-level priorities, and set a path to achieve them effectively and coherently.

This report summarises the results of collaborative work carried out by OECD and PlanAPP, the Competence Centre for Planning, Policy, and Foresight in Public Administration in Portugal. It presents the main findings and recommendations on four strategic priorities for the country: i) evidence-informed policymaking and trust, ii) public policy evaluation, iii) strategic foresight and iv) strategic planning.

The frequency and severity of extreme wildfires are on the rise in Portugal, causing unprecedented disruption and increasingly challenging the country’s capacity to contain losses and damages. These challenges are set to keep growing in the context of climate change, highlighting the need to scale up wildfire prevention and climate change adaptation. This paper provides an overview of Portugal’s wildfire policies and practices and assesses the extent to which wildfire management in the country is evolving to adapt to growing wildfire risk under climate change.

The Rethinking Regional Attractiveness in the New Global Environment report highlights lessons learned from multiple regional case studies from five EU countries (Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden), additional work with Latin American and Caribbean regions, and a series of webinars and one-on-one dialogues on rethinking regional attractiveness. The OECD’s innovative multidimensional approach to assessing regional attractiveness considers global engagement beyond international connections and economic factors alone. The methodology considers more than 50 indicators to develop regional attractiveness profiles covering six domains of attractiveness: economic attraction, connectedness, visitor appeal, natural environment, resident well-being, and land-use and housing. The report helps regional and national policy makers to understand how individual regions fare in a new global environment that continues to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, compounded by the consequences of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and existing megatrends – all of which produce asymmetric impacts within and between countries and regions – and identify the policy levers available to enhance their attractiveness to the international target groups of investors, talent, and visitors. It also considers the need to co-ordinate across levels of government, across policy fields, and with private stakeholders, and highlights good practices to implement regional attractiveness policies.

This report provides a global assessment and outlook on wildfire risk in the context of climate change. It discusses the drivers behind the growing incidence of extreme wildfires and the attribution effect of climate change. It outlines the environmental, social and economic impacts of wildfires by illustrating the losses and costs observed during recent extreme wildfire events. Building on this, the report presents the findings of a cross-country comparative analysis of how countries’ policies and practices have evolved in recent years in light of observed and projected changes in wildfire risk. The analysis draws on in-depth case studies conducted in Australia, Costa Rica, Greece, Portugal and the United States. The report underlines the urgent need for governments to scale up climate change adaptation efforts to limit future wildfire costs.

Le Portugal a réussi à découpler plusieurs pressions environnementales de la croissance économique entre 2013 et 2019. Il a joué un rôle de premier plan dans l'approbation de la loi européenne sur le climat et a adopté la Loi-cadre portugaise sur le climat en 2021. Celle-ci doit être rapidement mise en œuvre pour atteindre la neutralité carbone d'ici 2050, améliorer la résilience aux effets du changement climatique et protéger les écosystèmes. Le Portugal a intensifié ses efforts d'adaptation, mais doit en faire davantage pour faire face aux multiples menaces, notamment l'érosion côtière, les inondations, les sécheresses et les feux de forêt. Le pays est à la traîne en matière de gestion des déchets. Par ailleurs, l'augmentation des prélèvements d'eau douce dans les régions du sud, où l'eau est rare, est préoccupante. Il s'agit du quatrième examen des performances environnementales du Portugal. Il fournit une évaluation, fondée sur des faits, des progrès du pays vers ses objectifs environnementaux au cours de la dernière décennie. Les 26 recommandations visent à aider le Portugal à améliorer ses performances environnementales, en accordant une attention particulière à la neutralité carbone. La présente version abrégée contient le résumé, de même que l’évaluation et les recommandations officielles du rapport. Le rapport complet est disponible en anglais sur le site web de l’OCDE.

This paper builds on the results of the OECD Trust Survey in Portugal to identify the main areas for improvement and guidelines for action to help Portugal reinforce trust and democracy and enhance public governance to address future challenges. The Portuguese government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis drew on lessons learned from previous crises, notably the plunge in public trust after the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent economic austerity measures which shook the political system and considerably impacted economic and social well-being. Public trust has traditionally been heralded as crucial for public governance. However, to build resilience in the face of multiple social, economic and environmental crises, Portugal will need to set public trust as an explicit policy objective and better understand what drives it. Investments in building a competent and trusted civil service will also be needed to develop more responsive and better-informed policy responses.

This publication is part of the OECD workstream on Preparing Regions for Demographic Change. It elaborates a case study for the Portuguese region of Alentejo and focuses on improving the delivery of educational services taking into account the multi-level governance context. The study highlights the need to better articulate and co-ordinate the delivery of educational services among levels of government to improve access and quality. It also sheds light on the decisive role that geography plays and the importance of adopting a spatial lens to mitigate the rising inequality present in Portugal in access to education services. Alentejo is a rural region that expects to lose 30% of its population between 2020 and 2080, hence it needs to put in place forward-looking and effective policy levers to delivery sustainable education services to citizens living in rural communities.

Le Comité d’aide au développement (CAD) de l’OCDE procède à des examens par les pairs de ses membres une fois tous les cinq ou six ans. 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. Le Portugal mobilise les compétences de l’ensemble de son administration et met fortement l’accent sur l’appropriation par les pays partenaires. Fort des relations bilatérales étroites qu’il a établies de longue date avec les pays partenaires, le Portugal concentre ses financements sur les pays où les besoins sont les plus grands. Par son action de plaidoyer efficace sur la scène internationale, le Portugal est un ardent défenseur de la coopération triangulaire et, en tant que président du Conseil de l’Union européenne, il a favorisé le consensus entre les membres de l’Union sur des questions comme le renforcement des initiatives Team Europe en faveur du développement humain. Cependant, le Portugal pourrait tirer davantage parti de la large participation des acteurs étatiques et non étatiques à ses activités de coopération pour le développement. Cet examen par les pairs formule un ensemble de recommandations destinées à améliorer la coordination entre les différentes composantes de l’administration, à rassembler les initiatives bilatérales, à accorder une plus grande attention aux réalisations et à prendre des mesures pour accroître l’aide publique au développement (APD).