By Date

This Digital Trade Review of Brazil provides an overview of Brazil’s participation in digital trade and the related regulatory environment. It provides insights into how Brazil might ensure that the new challenges raised by the digital transformation for trade can be managed and the benefits shared more inclusively. While Brazil has embraced the digital transformation and has strong potential to benefit from digital trade, it will need to continue the ongoing process of regulatory reform. This includes reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade on ICT goods; reducing regulatory barriers to ICT services; increasing engagement in international discussions on digital trade; and continuing efforts to bridge digital divides.

Before the pandemic hit, the city of Bilbao had the highest economic growth in Spain from 2000 to 2018, driven by a shift from heavy industry to a service-based economy. It also benefitted from a burgeoning tourism and culture sector, thanks to developments such as the Guggenheim Museum in 1998. Plagued with high unemployment in the late 90s, unemployment started to drop until 2008. However, such promising trends were unable to shield the city from the 2008 global financial and later COVID-19 crisis. This study assesses inequality in Bilbao and how the COVID-19 pandemic and the city’s response and recovery measures have affected its inclusive growth agenda. It also examines how Bilbao’s approach to deploying a smart city strategy and localising the SDGs contributes to the city’s overall resilience and inclusive growth objectives.

The Open Government Review of Brazil provides an evidence-based assessment of the country’s open government agenda against the ten provisions of the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Open Government. It is also the first OECD Open Government Review to integrate a civic space perspective. The review takes stock of past reform efforts, analyses the present situation and suggests key actions Brazil could take to strengthen its open government initiatives at the federal level, including in the areas of transparency and open data, citizen and stakeholder participation, social accountability and the protection of the civic space. The review provides a roadmap towards an integrated open government agenda in Brazil, including the design of Brazil's first Federal Open Government Strategy.

This paper maps the evolving data localisation landscape. It shows that the number of data localisation measures is on the rise and that the measures themselves are becoming more restrictive. The paper highlights the need to better understand and monitor the evolving regulatory environment with a view to enabling empirical analysis of the economic and societal implications of data localisation. This is an issue which is particularly important in the context of ongoing discussions on data localisation, be they in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) or in the context of the WTO Joint Statement Initiative on e-commerce.

The OECD Recommendation on Children in the Digital Environment provides guidance for governments and other stakeholders on putting in place policies and procedures to empower and protect children in the digital environment. The Recommendation was developed in recognition that the digital environment is a fundamental part of children’s daily lives, and that strong policy frameworks are needed to both protect children from any potential harm, and to help them realise the opportunities that it can bring. This companion document aims to assist governments and other stakeholders in implementing the Recommendation. It expands upon the context in which the Recommendation was developed, and considers in detail specific aspects of the Recommendation, in particular different stakeholders and their roles (e.g. parents, governments, digital service providers) as well as key underlying concepts such as children’s privacy, digital literacy and child safety by design.

The form, content and governance of national digital strategies varies significantly across countries, and questions have arisen as to what a national digital strategy should cover and how to govern it. This paper analyses national digital strategies and their governance across countries. It proposes a novel methodology to assess the comprehensiveness of national digital strategies using newly collected policy information and applying the OECD Going Digital Integrated Policy Framework as a benchmark. The resulting indicator – the NDSC – measures national digital strategy comprehensiveness, providing insights into the potential of a country’s national digital strategy to co-ordinate the policies needed to make digital transformation work for growth and well-being. The NDSC is available interactively on the OECD Going Digital Toolkit.

Fostering SME development and digital transformation helps increase productivity, in turn fostering stronger, more diversified and dynamic economies. The Government of Georgia has made significant policy efforts in recent years to build an environment conducive to private-sector development and entrepreneurship, and to support small and medium-sized enterprises in particular. The OECD has supported this reform impetus, working closely with the Ministry of Economy and Sustainable Development to help identify gaps and develop relevant measures to create a conducive policy environment for Georgian SMEs.

Twenty-first-century health systems will be built around data and information. An integrated health information system enables the secure flow of data to where they can be used to create information and knowledge to advance policy and health system objectives. This report describes the requirements and the benefits of an integrated health information system; outlines the current situation in Korea in the context of progress across OECD countries; and recommends policy and operational changes to overcome barriers to the efficient exchange and sharing of health data and establish an integrated health information system that supports continuous learning, improvement and innovation.

Education systems can build on school-led micro-innovations during the pandemic to develop more equitable learning. Empowering teachers to be autonomous, actively engaged in designing learning environments, and knowledgeable and dynamic in using multi-modal technology can encourage more peer-to-peer collaboration in schools and enrich pedagogy. This will be crucial in addressing the learning needs of disadvantaged students and boosting science proficiency with the goal of societal equity.