Publications & Documents

Ireland is highly centralised and fast growing, creating co-ordination challenges in terms of delivering key investments and in key policy areas like transport, housing and education. Actors across levels of government recognise a need for a more coordinated approach to the delivery of the National Planning Framework, the principal spatial planning strategy of Project Ireland 2040, which includes also the National Development Plan (public investment).The report has three objectives which ultimately aim to support more balanced regional outcomes in Ireland: i) to clarify the gaps in terms of regional attractiveness across and within Ireland’s regions, including in terms of population and investment attraction; ii) to assess the ability for the National Planning Framework – in its current form – to address these gaps, and iii) to consider what multi-level governance reforms and attractiveness policies can be introduced or scaled to generate more territorially-balanced development.

Global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C as early as in 2030, with current climate action falling short of meeting the Paris Agreement goals and a mounting risk of tipping beyond the ability of human societies to adapt. Building on broader OECD work on climate, this report proposes a new OECD territorial climate indicator framework and demonstrates that the potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, adapt to climate impacts and address vulnerabilities varies across different territories. The report also presents a policy framework of 9 recommended actions to help decision makers unleash more effective climate action and resilience, both by integrating a territorial approach into national and subnational climate policies and by mainstreaming climate objectives into urban, rural and regional policies. The report summarises the analysis into a checklist for national and local governments to implement a territorial approach to climate and resilience policies, as well as a compendium of 36 best practices from cities, regions and countries from all around the world.

Brazil's public governance efforts have been seen as a model for other Latin American countries in areas such as civil service reform, open and digital government. However, in line with regional trends, trust in government and public institutions in Brazil has consistently declined in recent decades, hindering inclusive and sustainable growth, as well as social cohesion. The COVID-19 and other emerging crises have further exacerbated this trend and highlighted the need to strengthen the resilience of public institutions. Brazil is the first country in Latin America to undertake an OECD study on the main drivers of trust in public institutions, as part of a broader effort in building trustworthy relationships between the people and institutions. This report provides novel evidence on Brazilian people’s expectations and evaluation of government’s reliability, responsiveness, openness, integrity and fairness, based on the OECD Trust Survey. Based on this evidence, it identifies opportunities to further enhance trust, including improving the delivery and responsiveness of public services, enhancing foresight, planning, and preparedness to address long-term challenges, and promoting communication and engagement between the government and the people.

The behaviours of both top- and middle-level managers matter for promoting open organisational cultures, mitigating integrity risks and fostering ethical behaviour by their staff. This report examines key issues around integrity leadership in Brazil’s federal public administration, based on an extensive survey of senior public officials. Informed and inspired by behavioural insights, it provides concrete recommendations for strengthening integrity leadership in Brazil.

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.

Two out of five OECD countries contract out some of the job brokerage and counselling functions of publicly financed employment services using outcome-based payment models. This paper examines several important aspects related to the design and implementation of such outsourcing. First, innovative payment models can improve incentives for external providers to offer training and more effective services for hard-to-place clients. Second, providing forward guidance to providers and accounting for contingencies can mitigate their risks, e.g. of being underpaid relative to expenses incurred, thus lowering service costs. Third, letting individuals choose a provider can result in services that are better tailored and foster ongoing competition between providers. Finally, automating data exchange can, somewhat paradoxically, improve data privacy and data protection while enabling new payment models. These and related findings are discussed with country examples based on desk research and interviews with stakeholders in several OECD countries. The paper builds on work conducted in the project 'Reforming the Swedish Public Employment Service', which was carried out with funding from the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument and was implemented by the OECD in cooperation with the European Commission's Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support.

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.

Regional development is rooted in place-based strategic planning and strengthened regional innovation systems. In Romania, the eight Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) are responsible for strategic planning for regional development and delivering innovation support services to regional and local actors. They also manage the public investment funds dedicated to these activities. These are challenging tasks. Many RDAs face difficulties in ensuring that regional and sub-regional development objectives and priorities align, expanding the definition of innovation, and activating their regional innovation ecosystem. Equally difficult is keeping stakeholders engaged and committed to the regional development and innovation agendas. This report synthesises the regional development and innovation challenges facing Romania’s RDAs and potential activities to overcome these in three areas – strategic planning and performance measurement, finance and implementation, and communication and stakeholder engagement. It also offers insights and recommendations for higher-levels bodies to further support RDAs through guidance, facilitating peer-exchange, and actively engaging the RDAs in regional development decision making.

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.