Public governance

In recent years, international development co-operation has undergone a transition from a conventional donor-recipient model to a partnership-centred approach, including with regions and cities. Friuli Venezia Giulia, a small region in north-eastern Italy with extensive policy autonomy, has been active in international co-operation and is seeking to get more out of its actions both for the region and with its co-operation partners around the world. This paper evaluates its strategy on international partnership and co-operation and proposes recommendations, including more targeted initiatives that leverage the expertise of the region for greater impact in partner countries and for local benefits.

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.

In the face of what has increasingly been referred to as an ongoing 'permacrisis', governments must cope with and respond to emerging threats while already grappling with longstanding issues such as climate change, digital disruption and low levels of trust. In this context, understanding new approaches and spreading successful ideas has never been more important. To promote this, the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) has analysed 1 084 innovative initiatives from 94 countries to derive and understand novel government practices. The report discusses four key trends: 1) new forms of accountability for a new era of government, 2) new approaches to care, 3) new methods for preserving identities and strengthening equity and 4) new ways of engaging citizens and residents. Ten case studies and dozens of supporting examples illustrate these trends.

Around one-third of the European Union’s budget is dedicated to cohesion policy, which promotes and supports the overall harmonious development of its Member States and regions. The success of this investment relies on effective partnerships among governments, stakeholders, and citizens. Citizens have a key role to play in shaping decisions on public investment, as well as in making public authorities more transparent and accountable. From July 2020-December 2021, the European Commission and the OECD partnered to explore how five authorities across Europe could place citizens at the centre of their investment decisions. This report summarises lessons learned throughout this project and, particularly, the results of applying innovative citizen participation methods to cohesion policy more broadly.

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.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments face both old and new fraud risks, some at unprecedented levels, linked to spending on relief and recovery. Public grant programmes are a high-risk area, where any fraud ultimately diverts taxpayers’ money away from essential support for individuals and businesses. This report identifies how Spain’s General Comptroller of the State Administration (Intervención General de la Administración del Estado, IGAE) could better identify and control for grant fraud risks. It demonstrates how innovative machine learning techniques can support the IGAE in enhancing its assessment of fraud risks in grant data. It presents a working risk model, developed with datasets at the IGAE’s disposal, and maps datasets it could use in the future. The report also considers the preconditions for advanced analytics and risk assessments, including ways for the IGAE to improve its data governance and data management.

Spain has undertaken a series of reforms over the last decade to strengthen the government’s ability to deliver high-quality services to citizens and businesses, while enhancing transparency and accountability. One major effort spearheaded by the National Audit Office (Oficina Nacional de Auditoría or ONA) is the continuous supervision system (SSC), a risk-based methodology that acts as a litmus test for the financial health, effectiveness and sustainability of public institutions. Drawing on interviews, a comparative analysis of leading practices, and research, this report provides recommendations to support the ONA in further strengthening its management of the SSC by improving its strategy, use of data, and co-ordination mechanisms across government.

Andalusia is the largest mining producer in Spain, the second-largest copper producer in the EU and a leader in marble and gypsum production. The region benefits from two distinct mining subsectors, each with a rich network of suppliers that are relevant for local development: the metallic mining sector (e.g. copper and zinc), which accounts for most of the regional mining production, and the non-metallic sector (ornamental rocks, aggregates and industrial minerals), which is highly dispersed across the territory. The regional mining value chain has the potential to leverage the increasing global and EU demand for sustainable raw materials and thus become a frontrunner in leading technologies and circular processes for environmentally sustainable mining. This study identifies how Andalusia can build on its strengths and address current and future challenges to improve regional productivity and well-being while accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy and assisting EU climate goals.

COVID-19 is testing the Basque Country’s (Spain) resilience. Before COVID-19, employment indicators were recovering from the 2008 crisis, while automation of production was underway. Job quality remained low despite rising educational attainment in the region. COVID-19 is likely to accelerate structural changes in the labour market, including automation and digitalisation. Firms may increasingly look to technology as a way to pandemic proof their operations, while individuals may develop preferences for automated services as opposed to face to face contact. This OECD report sheds light on the potential impacts of automation on the Basque labour market, including which types of jobs and groups of workers are most likely to be impacted, in light of COVID-19 and other labour market changes. The report also highlights the critical role to be played by employment services, training policies and social dialogue to help people and firms make labour market transitions while upholding social cohesion. The report delves into how the Basque Country’s employment and skills system can continue to be at the front line as the crisis evolves.

In Spain, as in most countries, the real obstacle to effective and efficient delivery of key infrastructure is not the availability of finance, but rather problems of governance. This review examines the transport infrastructure governance framework in Spain against OECD good practices. It identifies the main governance bottlenecks for the development of transport infrastructure projects and provides a comparison with what other countries have done to alleviate similar bottlenecks. It provides the Spanish authorities with assessments and recommendations to enhance their capacity to formulate, develop and implement policies and strategies that support better decision-making in transport infrastructure. The review is comprised by two complementary sections: an assessment report of the legal framework and the decision-making process of transport infrastructure investments in Spain, and a technical note that provides a benchmarking analysis on practices from selected countries (i.e. Australia, Chile, France, Germany, Italy and United Kingdom), with a specific focus on the railway sector. The benchmark refers to concrete case studies that support the recommendations provided in the assessment report. The report relied on the OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Infrastructure (2020) and the OECD Recommendation on the Principles for Public Governance of Public-Private Partnerships (2012).