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Gender equality and environmental sustainability are gaining political momentum as global challenges that require urgent action at the national and international levels. Both figure prominently, albeit with limited interlinkages, in the United Nations Agenda 2030, and gender equality considerations are slowly making their way into international environmental and climate commitments. An integrated approach to gender equality and environmental sustainability – i.e. recognising the gender-environment nexus – could help to alleviate limitations to gender equality and women’s economic empowerment and enhance their roles in environmental sustainability and green growth. Likewise, enhancing gender equality, and women’s economic empowerment and decision-making, can lead to better environmental and climate outcomes and policies. This report observes the gender-environment nexus in the Greek policy framework. It assesses environmental and climate policies through a gender lens, and gender equality policies through an environmental lens. It focuses mainly on policies and measures that could support women’s economic empowerment in environment-related sectors; women’s environmental leadership and decision making; and mainstreaming gender equality and environmental sustainability in policy tools. It proposes a series of recommendations that, if taken on board, could support integrating the gender-environment nexus into Greece’s national policies.

Education is one of the most important fields to promote the integration of refugee and newcomer children and youths in host countries. However, holistic education for refugee and newcomers has so far not been established into mainstream education systems in European countries. Projects and pilot programmes have developed across Europe to test holistic approaches. Some of them have started very recently as a response to the arrival of high numbers of refugees and newcomers, while others have been established for a longer period and have started to expand. This paper first provides an overview of key research gaps in refugee education. It then provides a mapping of promising holistic education practices in Europe, with a focus on Germany, Greece and the Netherlands. Based on this, the paper explores key conditions to upscale and institutionalise promising practices of holistic refugee and newcomer education.

This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in Greece as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system. This edition has a special focus on the impact of COVID‑19. This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.

Under Action 14, countries have committed to implement a minimum standard to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the mutual agreement procedure (MAP). The MAP is included in Article 25 of the OECD Model Tax Convention and commits countries to endeavour to resolve disputes related to the interpretation and application of tax treaties. The Action 14 Minimum Standard has been translated into specific terms of reference and a methodology for the peer review and monitoring process. The peer review process is conducted in two stages. Stage 1 assesses countries against the terms of reference of the minimum standard according to an agreed schedule of review. Stage 2 focuses on monitoring the follow-up of any recommendations resulting from jurisdictions' stage 1 peer review report. This report reflects the outcome of the stage 2 peer monitoring of the implementation of the Action 14 Minimum Standard by Greece.

This report looks at the need for Greece to redesign its inter-island transport system to make it more operational and sustainable. It takes into account the challenges of designing networks for island ecosystems and island clusters, which present even greater difficulties. Specifically, it examines applying the Island Transport Equivalent policy tool to increase island accessibility and growth potential.

Social protection systems use a range of entitlement criteria. First-tier support typically requires contributions or past employment in many countries, while safety net benefits are granted on the basis of need. In a context of volatile and uncertain labour markets, careful and continuous monitoring of the effectiveness of income support is a key input into an evidence-based policy process. This paper proposes a novel empirical method for monitoring the accessibility and levels of safety net benefits. It focusses on minimum-income benefits (MIB) and other non-contributory transfers and relies on data on the amounts of cash support that individuals in need receive in practice. Results show that accessibility and benefit levels differ enormously across countries – for instance, in 2015/16, more than four out of five low-income workless one-person households received MIB in Australia, France and the United Kingdom, compared to only one in five in Greece, Italy and Korea, three countries that have since sought to strengthen aspects of safety-net provisions.

Ce rapport est une édition spéciale du Tableau de bord de l’OCDE sur le financement des PME et des entrepreneurs, publication phare de l’OCDE. Il examine en détail les conséquences du COVID-19 sur l’accès des PME au financement, ainsi que les mesures prises en conséquence par les pouvoirs publics. Il apparaît qu’avant la crise, les conditions de financement étaient globalement favorables pour les PME et les entrepreneurs, qui bénéficiaient de faibles taux d’intérêt, de critères accommodants d’octroi des crédits et d’une offre de plus en plus diversifiée d’instruments de financement. Mais la crise du COVID‑19 a profondément bouleversé l’accès des PME au financement. Plus particulièrement, l’effondrement brutal du chiffre d’affaires des entreprises a provoqué de graves pénuries de liquidités qui ont mis en danger la survie de bon nombre d’entreprises viables. Ce rapport fait état d’une augmentation de la demande de prêts bancaires au cours du premier semestre de 2020, et d’une stabilité de l’offre de crédit grâce à l’action des pouvoirs publics. Parallèlement, on a observé un recul d’autres sources de financement, en particulier l’apport de fonds propres au stade du démarrage. Le rapport réunit des données sur le périmètre et l’ampleur des mesures prises par les gouvernements dans le monde, et en précise les principales caractéristiques. Il décrit les principaux enjeux stratégiques du financement des PME qui se poseront au cours des prochaines phases de la pandémie ; il s’agira en effet d’éviter le surendettement des PME, de promouvoir une gamme diversifiée d’instruments de financement, de stimuler la création d’entreprises et de renforcer la résilience des PME par des mesures structurelles.