Publications & Documents

Many Latin American countries have experienced improvements in income over recent decades, with several of them now classified as high-income or upper middle-income in terms of conventional metrics. But has this change been mirrored in improvements across the different areas of people’s lives? How’s Life in Latin America? Measuring Well-being for Policy Making addresses this question by presenting comparative evidence for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with a focus on 11 LAC countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay). Spanning material conditions, quality of life, resources for future well-being, and inequalities, the report presents available evidence on well-being both before and since the onset of the pandemic, based on the OECD Well-being Framework. It also identifies priorities for addressing well-being gaps and describes how well-being frameworks are used in policy within Latin America and elsewhere around the world, providing lessons for governments on what is needed to put people’s well-being at the centre of their action. The report is part of the EU Regional Facility for Development in Transition for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Using household data from 15 countries in Latin America and Africa, this paper explores linkages between informality and education-occupation matching. The paper applies a unified methodology to measuring education-occupation mismatches and informality, consistently with the international labour and statistical standards in this area. The results suggest that in the majority of low- and middle-income developing countries with available data, workers in informal jobs have higher odds of being undereducated as compared to workers in formal jobs. Workers in formal jobs, in contrast, have higher chances of being overeducated. These results are consistent for dependent as well as for independent workers. They also hold for men and for women according to the gender-disaggregated analysis. Moreover, in the majority of countries considered in this paper, the matching-informality nexus is also related to the extent of informality in a given area: in labour markets with higher informality, informal workers in particular have a higher chance of being undereducated. The paper discusses policy implications of these findings.

A clear, efficient, and modern regulatory framework for pesticides is essential for addressing their impacts on human health and the environment, supporting a life-cycle approach to their management, and ensuring crop protection and a sustainable agricultural industry. This report identifies the gaps, barriers, implementation flaws and inefficiencies that affect the regulatory framework of pesticides in Mexico. It takes stock of the regulatory framework and recent reforms, and identifies both the areas that pose the greatest challenge for the effective regulation of pesticides and those where regulation – or lack of it – in pesticides most affects policy objectives and economic activity. These challenges and practices are assessed in view of OECD principles and country experiences, and recommendations are provided to support better regulation efforts. The report finds that Mexico would benefit from adopting a comprehensive, mutually-agreed policy strategy for pesticides, recognising that pesticide management is a shared responsibility across national and local governments, the pesticide industry, pesticide users, as well as the general public.

This review analyses the public procurement system, processes and tools applied in the State of Mexico, the biggest federal entity in the country in terms of population. It assesses the extent of centralisation of the procurement function, its implications and areas of opportunity to reap the benefits of such strategy. By analysing the degree of competition in public tenders, the review provides alternatives to increase competitive pressures to maximise efficiency and value-for-money. Likewise, it evaluates the e-procurement platform COMPRAMEX and its potential to incorporate new transactional functions. Finally, the review assesses measures implemented to advance integrity in public procurement and the professionalisation of the procurement workforce. It provides concrete proposals addressing every aspect of the procurement lifecycle, from planning and market consultations to contract management.

This review analyses the Anti-corruption Policy of the State of Mexico and Municipalities, highlighting its strengths (i.e. inclusion and rigour) as well as the need to include specific integrity risks (i.e. policy capture) to make it more comprehensive. The review analyses how the State Government could develop ownership of ethical rules and values to effectively influence public officials’ behaviour. It also assesses the internal control and risk management scheme of the State of Mexico, providing an overview of its good practices and weak points. Finally, it examines the role of the administrative liability regime for state public officials and its effectiveness in ensuring accountability. It describes the legal framework for administrative responsibilities, which provides a comprehensive and solid foundation for enforcing integrity rules and standards, but requires support to improve implementation.

Skills are the key to shaping a better future, and central to the capacity of countries and people to thrive in an increasingly interconnected and rapidly changing world. Megatrends such as globalisation, technological advances and demographic change, compounded by the effects of the COVID‑19 pandemic, are reshaping work and society, as well as the types of skills most in demand in the labour market. OECD Skills Strategy projects provide a strategic and comprehensive approach to assess countries’ skills challenges and opportunities and help them build more effective skills systems. The OECD works collaboratively with countries to develop policy responses tailored to each country’s specific skills needs. The foundation of this approach is the OECD Skills Strategy Framework, which allows for an exploration of what countries can do better to: 1) develop relevant skills over the life course; 2) use skills effectively in work and in society; and 3) strengthen the governance of the skills system. This report, OECD Skills Strategy Tlaxcala (Mexico): Assessment and Recommendations, identifies opportunities and makes recommendations to strengthen the skills of youth, foster greater participation in adult learning, use people’s skills more effectively to raise productivity, and strengthen the governance of the skills system in the state of Tlaxcala, Mexico.

Informal employment, defined through the lack of employment-based social protection, constitutes the bulk of employment in developing countries, and entails a level of vulnerability to poverty and other risks that are borne by all who are dependent on informal work income. Results from the Key Indicators of Informality based on Individuals and their Households database (KIIbIH) show that a disproportionately large number of middle‑class informal economy workers receive remittances. Such results confirm that risk management strategies, such as migration, play a part in minimising the potential risks of informal work for middle‑class informal households who may not be eligible to social assistance. They further suggest that middle‑class informal workers may have a solvent demand for social insurance so that, if informality-robust social insurance schemes were made available to them, remittances could potentially be channelled to finance the extension of social insurance to the informal economy.