Publications & Documents

Located in the Caribbean Sea, Guadeloupe is a French Overseas Department and a European Outermost Region in search of a more sustainable economic development pathway. In support of that endeavour, this Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR) Spotlight looks at the region's opportunities and challenges, identifying priority actions in several areas, including the bio- and circular economy, creative sectors and renewable energies. The Spotlight enriches our understanding of the diversity of development pathways, including those of Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It is the result of an extensive peer-review process involving public and private stakeholders from Colombia, Caribbean countries and other EU outermost regions.

Platform cooperatives refer to cooperatives that are directly owned and managed by their members and that use websites and/or mobile apps to sell goods and/or services. They have emerged in large part as alternatives to digital labour platforms to promote better working conditions with evidence of significant growth in recent years. This paper provides an overview of employment in platform cooperatives and offers insights on their distinctive features. In particular, it provides i) insights on working conditions associated with such platforms; ii) an overview on the challenges they face in creating jobs as well as scaling up, developing and expanding their activity; and iii) policy recommendations and examples of policy actions that could help policy makers best support them to generate work opportunities and enhance job quality. This paper was produced as part of the OECD Global Action on Promoting Social and Solidarity Economy Ecosystems, funded by the European Union’s Foreign Partnership Instrument.

This report builds on work presented in the OECD’s 2019 report Regions in Industrial Transition: Policies for People and Places. It considers industrial transition as a complex and enduring challenge in regional development that traditional policy levers have not always been able to satisfactorily address. Beginning with an overview of how to characterise these regions, it then explores why they require tailored policy approaches and posits whether adopting a more experimental path in governance arrangements and policy initiatives could make inroads in meeting industrial transition objectives. The report shares findings emanating from the experiences of eight regions and two countries that designed and implemented experimental initiatives to advance their industrial transition process and Smart Specialisation Strategies, with the support of the European Commission. It features a framework of governance and policy areas that influence industrial transition, and applicable to experimentation. Combining this with insights from each experiment studied, the report presents a toolkit of policy levers for policy makers grappling with industrial transition, and a checklist for those wishing to apply an experimental approach to industrial transition initiatives. Finally, the report contains a synopsis of the initiatives designed and implemented by the regions and countries participating in this project.

Produced as part of the OECD Global Action on Promoting Social and Solidarity Economy Ecosystems, funded by the European Union’s Foreign Partnership Instrument, this paper provides a framework to clarify the core notions of the social and solidarity economy, along with social economy, social enterprise, social innovation and other related notions. The objective is to explain what they are and understand how these notions have evolved in recent decades. It also aims to capture and document the great diversity within social and solidarity economy organisations in terms of purposes, legal entities, business models and practices to help better characterise the 'population' of social and solidarity economy entities.

Produced as part of the OECD Global Action 'Promoting Social and Solidarity Economy Ecosystems' funded by the European Union, this paper explores the role of the social and solidarity economy (SSE) in implementing and complementing public systems for refugee protection, reception and integration. In particular, it reviews the different activities SSE entities can deploy in support of forcibly displaced populations, asylum seekers and refugees, along their journey from origin through to destination countries. Finally, it offers some policy considerations on how the SSE can help national and local governments identify win-win solutions for refugee and host communities.

This policy paper explores the contribution of platform cooperatives to local development as an alternative model to conventional digital platforms. It considers their role in reducing potential negative effects of the digital transition on local communities and places, as well as the new opportunities they present to provide greater quality of life for local residents. The paper introduces the main features of platform cooperatives, explores their contributions to local development and identifies the challenges to their emergence and expansion. It then provides policy orientations that could support the development of platform cooperatives and enhance their contributions to local development. This paper was produced as part of the OECD Global Action on Promoting Social and Solidarity Economy Ecosystems, funded by the European Union’s Foreign Partnership Instrument.

Like-for-like replacement of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles by identical electric-powered vehicles is thought to be the main uptake pathway for electric vehicle (EV) uptake. However, what characterises global passenger and freight EV markets is the emerging uptake of smaller, lighter and shorter-ranged vehicle types specially designed for urban areas. A shift towards a broader EV uptake could be an opportunity for more sustainable and electric urban mobility systems – with comparatively lower electricity and charging infrastructure demand and battery materials needs, lower emissions and safer city streets. This report identifies the main use cases that could be part of such a broader and sustainable EV uptake. It also quantifies the sustainability impacts of different EV uptake scenarios that vary in vehicle fleet composition and degrees of electrification ambition. Finally, it gives recommendations on how authorities could leverage the passenger and freight EV transition for more sustainable cities.

Building on strong local roots to address local development challenges, many social and solidarity economy (SSE) entities are increasingly extending their operations internationally. By responding to international social and environmental challenges, SSE entities can help make global value chains more inclusive and sustainable. With the pursuit of a social mission and participatory governance at the core of their operations, SSE entities adopt specific approaches to internationalise their presence. Some internationalise to scale their impact to reach more people and areas, while some do so to deepen their impact on existing target groups by leveraging resources internationally. This paper analyses what SSE internationalisation involves and its specific drivers (chapter 1), trends in SSE internationalisation (chapter 2), competitive advantages and barriers of the SSE for internationalisation (chapter 3), and actionable areas for policy makers to promote its internationalisation (chapter 4).

Half a century after independence, Bangladesh has achieved impressive progress. The country has transformed from one of the poorest nations into a global textile manufacturing hub capable of meeting its medical needs almost entirely through domestic pharmaceutical production. The country will graduate from the least developed country (LDC) category in 2026 and aspires to be a high-income nation through industrialisation by 2041. Meeting this challenge requires accelerating economic transformation through diversification and innovation. This Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR), implemented with the support and collaboration of the European Union (EU), and in partnership with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), identifies concrete options for supporting Bangladesh’s development. It calls for leveraging digitalisation to address persistent fragilities and it advocates for a new pact based on shared responsibilities between the national government, the private sector and international partners to shift to a new development phase and ensure sustainable, smooth and irreversible graduation.