Publications & Documents

The growing demand for raw materials in the Hungarian economy projected up to 2050 is expected to exert significant additional pressure on the environment, putting the country at risk of missing important environmental goals and opportunities to strengthen the competitiveness and resilience of its economy. Despite the notable progress in decoupling environmental pressures from economic activities over the past 20 years, several challenges remain. The transition to a circular economy has significant potential to address these challenges. To fully realise the circular potential of its economy, Hungary will need to adopt a comprehensive circular economy policy framework. This report outlines a set of key elements for the development of the Hungarian national circular economy strategy and action plan. It identifies priority areas that are deemed critical to the Hungarian circular economy transition, including: biomass and food, construction and plastics, as well as cross-cutting horizontal tools to facilitate an economy-wide circular transition. It also provides 45 policy recommendations and suggests specific implementation actions across the priority areas for the short, medium and long term.

The emergence of fully online, hybrid and blended forms of higher education has led governments, quality assurance agencies and higher education institutions (HEIs) across the OECD to reflect on how to ensure that digital education provides learners with opportunities to reach learning and employment outcomes similar to those achieved through traditional in person instruction. Building on stakeholder engagement and comparative analysis, this report offers an assessment of Hungary’s quality assurance system for higher education and, more specifically, its strengths and weaknesses for assuring the quality of digital higher education. It offers recommendations and policy options to support the ongoing reform of Hungary’s higher education accreditation system as well as a list of potential digital education indicators to be integrated in the assessment frameworks used by the Hungarian Accreditation Committee (MAB) for the accreditation of higher education institutions.

Le Comité d’aide au développement (CAD) de l’OCDE mène tous les cinq à six ans un examen par les pairs qui passe en revue les efforts de coopération pour le développement de chacun de ses membres. Ces examens visent à améliorer la qualité et l’efficacité de leur coopération pour le développement, en mettant en évidence les bonnes pratiques et en recommandant des améliorations. Membre du CAD depuis 2016 seulement, la Hongrie affiche une croissance impressionnante de son aide publique au développement (APD). Sa coopération bilatérale, en particulier, a progressé ; elle s’appuie sur d’étroites consultations avec ses partenaires. La Hongrie se fait le défenseur de la gestion durable de l’eau, combinant à cet effet diplomatie, expertise nationale et coopération pour le développement. Dans les contextes fragiles, elle concentre son soutien sur les organisations de la société civile locales, et surtout sur les organismes confessionnels. Tandis qu’elle continue de progresser vers les normes et méthodes de travail établies du CAD, une réorganisation institutionnelle offre à la Hongrie des occasions non négligeables d’approfondir la réforme. Cet examen par les pairs délivre une série de recommandations visant à accroître les retombées de l’engagement de la Hongrie auprès des pays partenaires, à approfondir la collaboration entre les institutions et avec les parties prenantes, à renforcer les systèmes internes et à établir un bon équilibre entre ses objectifs nationaux et ses objectifs de développement international.

This profile identifies strengths, challenges and specific areas of action on cancer prevention and care in Hungary as part of the European Cancer Inequalities Registry, a flagship initiative of Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. It provides a short synthesis of: the national cancer burden; risk factors for cancer (focusing on behavioural and environmental risk factors); early detection programmes; and cancer care performance (focusing on accessibility, care quality, costs and the impact of COVID-19 on cancer care).

Being able to swim empowers individuals to make choices, have agency, and be free to choose core aspects of their life, such as working safely on or near water. It is also associated with lifelong health benefits and reduces the risk of drowning. Using data from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll 2019, this paper provides the first global estimates of adults’ ability to swim without assistance. Individuals in high-income countries are considerably more likely to report being able to swim without assistance than individuals in low-income countries. Disparities also exist within countries. In particular, women are less likely to be able to swim without assistance than men in virtually all countries, birth cohorts, and levels of education. Investing in reducing inequalities in life skills, such as swimming, can foster economic development and empowerment, especially in light of threats, such as climate change.

Understanding adults’ attitudes towards the environment is necessary to gauge the opportunities and challenges of creating effective and politically-feasible climate policies. Using data from the Wellcome Global Monitor 2020, the European Social Survey (Round 8), World Values Survey and EM-DAT, this paper examines how adults’ environmental attitudes vary within and across countries and details how environmental attitudes are associated with adults’ engagement in pro-environmental behaviours and support for environmentally-friendly policies. The paper explores whether the extent to which individuals prioritise the environment over the state of the economy or vice versa depends on individuals’ exposure to natural disasters or negative labour market conditions. Results indicate that people’s economic vulnerability and the sectors they work in impact their attitudes towards their environment and support for public policy. Furthermore, the findings suggest that increases in unemployment and exposure to natural disasters influence the extent to which individuals prioritise the environment.

This report provides Hungary with key recommendations and policy options to establish comprehensive and user-friendly methodologies and tools for the greater uptake of life-cycle costing (LCC) methodology in public procurement. The report introduces the concept of LCC and its links to the wider sustainable public procurement agenda, and maps the current practices in Hungary and existing LCC tools in other EU and OECD countries, with a view of drawing insights to promote the development and uptake of LCC tools.

The paper is the first in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The second paper is titled: ‘The environmental sustainability competence toolbox: From leaving a better planet to our children to leaving better children for our planet’.