Publications & Documents

This policy paper provides an analysis of the new the Portuguese Competence Centre for Planning, Policy and Foresight in Public Administration (PlanAPP) and its functions in Portugal, focusing on strategic planning and networking activities. It analyses the role of PlanAPP in aligning and harmonising the strategic planning process and in ensuring evidence-informed, inclusive and co-ordinated strategic planning, particularly through RePLAN, Portugal’s Public Administration Planning and Foresight Services Network. The paper makes recommendations to help Portugal effectively implement the competency centre model, consolidate its strategic planning process, better define and co-ordinate high-level priorities, and set a path to achieve them effectively and coherently.

Millions of children around the globe experience justice problems and legal needs, which are especially acute for children facing other adversities and disadvantages. To this end, this OECD Child-Friendly Justice Framework supports countries in developing a government-wide strategy to strengthen child-friendly practices in the justice system. Building on the analysis of the legal needs of children and challenges they face when confronting justice problems, this framework provides a basis for child-friendly reforms of justice systems, in line with international standards and obligations. Underpinned by a clear child-centric purpose, the framework provides guidance and good practice examples for (1) designing and delivering child-friendly justice services, (2) establishing the governance enablers and infrastructure to support child-friendly services, (3) empowering children and justice system workers to facilitate child-friendly justice, and (4) planning, monitoring and accountability needed to ensure that child justice reforms are effective and sustained.

Citizenship and residency by investment (CBI/RBI) programmes are government-administered programmes that grant citizenship or residency to foreign investors by expediting or bypassing normal migration processes. These programmes can help spur economic growth through foreign direct investment, but they are also attractive to criminals and corrupt officials seeking to evade justice and launder the proceeds of crime reaching into the billions of dollars. This report highlights how CBI programmes can allow criminals more global mobility and help them hide their identity and criminal activities behind shell companies in other jurisdictions. It highlights the vulnerabilities of these complex and international investment migration programmes, including the frequent use of intermediaries, involvement of multiple government agencies, abuse by professional enablers and lack of proper governance of the CBI/RBI programmes. The report proposes measures and examples of good practice, that can help policy makers and those responsible for managing the investment migration programmes address these risks. These include an in-depth analysis and understanding of how criminals can exploit CBI or RBI programmes and incorporating risk mitigation measures, such as multi-layer due diligence, in the design of the investment migration programme.

This report provides an assessment of Hungary’s Draft Medium Term National Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2023-2025 (NACS) and the Action Plan for its implementation. The NACS is one of several steps Hungary is taking to improve its rule of law performance. This report highlights strengths and makes recommendations for improving the NACS based on international good practice, the OECD’s Public Integrity Indicators, and Hungary’s commitments within its Recovery and Resilience Plan and remedial measures.

Open government is a powerful catalyst for driving democracy, public trust, and inclusive growth. In recognition of this, the OECD Council adopted the Recommendation on Open Government in 2017. To date, it remains the first - and only - internationally recognised legal instrument on open government and has guided many countries in designing and implementing their open government agendas. This report takes stock of countries' implementation of the Recommendation, its dissemination, and its ongoing significance. It is based on an OECD survey carried out in 2020/2021 among all countries that adhered to the Recommendation and other partner countries, as well as on further data collected through a perception survey with delegates to the OECD Working Party on Open Government.

This report examines the innovative capacity of the public sector of Romania, exploring opportunities for the public sector to work in new and novel ways to improve outcomes. It assesses the current innovative capacity and suggests paths forward to enhance capacity. The report provides foundational evidence for the creation of an action plan to enhance the public sector’s capacity to innovate for impact.

Climate change and other environmental threats require urgent government action. This policy paper discusses how governments can use better regulation instruments (good regulatory practices, risk-based and agile approaches, regulatory delivery, international regulatory cooperation, economic regulators, and behavioural insights) to design, implement and evaluate efficient and effective regulations for the environment. It explores the challenges governments face and presents good practices for environmental and other regulations, to ensure that all policy instruments coherently pursue environmental goals. Finally, the paper suggests how regulatory policy systems can meet present and future environmental challenges. It argues that to fully exploit the potential of better regulation for the environment, governments should implement measures that ensure an inclusive, cooperative, outcome-based and global approach to regulating.

This report provides concrete recommendations for strengthening the legislative and institutional framework for elected and appointed officials in Malta. It reviews the institutional and procedural set-up of the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life and analyses the omissions, inconsistencies and overlaps in the Standards in Public Life Act. It also provides recommendations to the Government of Malta on developing the most feasible lobbying regulation, and identifies concrete measures to strengthen the existing codes of ethics for elected and appointed officials, as well as the system of asset and interest declarations.

This paper takes stock of the institutional set-ups, mechanisms and practices used by governments, and in particular centres of government, to steer climate change policy. To respond effectively to climate change, governments need decision-making and co-ordinating processes that reflect the complexity and pressing nature of the climate crisis, the multitude of stakeholders involved, and the need to balance between short-term and long-term policy objectives. With their unique positioning, centres of government in OECD Member countries often play a crucial role in providing leadership and co-ordination for climate policy. The first part of this paper identifies the institutional arrangements, mandates and skillsets of centres of government for climate-related action. The second part analyses the centre’s stewardship role at different stages of the policy cycle, touching on strategic planning, co-ordination, the development of evidence-informed policies, and monitoring as well as overall efforts to 'green' public administrations.