Publications

In an era defined by the urgent climate crisis, unpredictable weather patterns and increasingly frequent natural disasters, ensuring infrastructure resilience to such events is paramount. This report discusses ways of enhancing government capacities to prevent, react and rebuild, thereby minimising the impact of natural disasters on infrastructure assets and operations. It identifies data, collaboration and technologies as drivers of resilience, and highlights financial resources, technical skills and regulatory frameworks as key enablers. The report presents seven actionable principles to ensure infrastructure resilience, drawing from global good practices and in-depth analyses of infrastructure projects in Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mozambique and the United States.

This report provides an overview of the impacts of climate change on infrastructure , and key policy areas to be considered to render infrastructure more resilient. It discusses advances and persisting gaps in planning and developing infrastructure across its lifecycle to build in climate resilience and how this can be fostered by place-based approach. The report explores how climate risk awareness and understanding can be strengthened and become a norm for all financing and investment decisions, through standards and financial instruments that integrate climate adaptation and resilience. It includes a spotlight on nature-based solutions and offers insights on how nature can be harnessed as a cost-effective measure to build climate resilience. The report also recognises the specific needs of developing countries as requiring global attention for economic development and through strengthened international partnerships and support. Key policy insights are provided and advocate for national and subnational policy-makers to adopt a multi-level governance approach to resilience, working with infrastructure owners and operators to support decision-making.

Ireland has shown a strong commitment to addressing child poverty and improving outcomes for children and young people. Responding to the needs of children and young people, particularly those most vulnerable, requires integrated policies and services. This report is part of a joint project between the OECD and the European Commission to strengthen policy and governance arrangements for tackling child poverty and improving outcomes for children and young people based on a whole-of-government approach. The report assesses recent policy, institutional and legislative developments in Ireland and compares outcomes for children and young people with those in other EU and OECD countries. It finds that despite progress, Ireland still has room for improvement on child poverty reduction, and more can be done to address the trust gap between young people in Ireland and their government. The report recommends Ireland to adopt measures to enhance inter-departmental and inter-agency co-operation, strengthen evidence-informed approaches, reinforce policy monitoring tools, and improve accountability mechanisms. It also recommends measures to support the effective implementation of Young Ireland, the National Policy Framework for Children and Young People (2023-28), and to ensure policy coherence.

To meet their international climate commitments and strengthen renewable energy production, many countries will require significant new investment in low emissions infrastructure. To deliver low emissions infrastructure at the necessary rate and scale, many countries recognise they need better ways of planning and regulating infrastructure and its value chains. This Working Paper describes the challenges and opportunities for using regulatory, stakeholder engagement and public procurement tools to help countries deliver more effective permitting. It provides international good practice case studies to help countries stimulate investment and reduce barriers for new, low emissions infrastructure so they can fulfil their international climate commitments while ensuring existing policy objectives.

This policy paper aims to help governments develop regulatory experimentation constructively and appropriately as part of their implementation of the 2021 OECD Recommendation for Agile Regulatory Governance to Harness Innovation. Regulatory experimentation can help promote adaptive learning and innovative and better-informed regulatory policies and practices. This policy paper examines key concepts, definitions and constitutive elements of regulatory experimentation. It outlines the rationale for using regulatory experimentation, discusses enabling factors and governance requirements, and presents a set of forward-looking conclusions.

Engaging with research, and ensuring research evidence is used well, is key to professionalising education policy making processes, and ultimately to improving educational outcomes. But the systematic use of evidence in policy making faces many challenges. This policy brief draws on evidence from the OECD Strengthening the Impact of Education Research project’s country learning seminars, as well as the project’s policy survey that collected responses from ministries of education in 37 education systems from 29 countries. The project is based in the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). This brief presents a set of case studies on two questions: • What human resource strategies can build individual and collective civil service professionalism? • What stable structures and mechanisms can contribute to the systematic and thoughtful use of evidence in policy processes?

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted various aspects of human activity, including illicit trade. Criminal networks have adapted quickly to exploit disrupted supply chains and increased demand for essential goods, creating new opportunities for profit. This report examines how the pandemic has reshaped the trade in counterfeit goods. It looks at the multifaceted effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the trade dynamic, particularly in the European Union. It also explores its effects on the trade in counterfeit goods, drawing on both law enforcement and industry expertise, as well as global customs seizure data. In particular, it highlights the challenges faced, the changing modus operandi of counterfeiters and the solutions that have emerged during this unprecedented health crisis.

This paper provides two innovative measures of well-being for French communes, namely a well-being aggregate index and an index of multi-dimensional poverty. These measures provide an unprecedented view of well-being at the local level by using 7 of the 11 key dimensions of the OECD Better Life Initiative (income, unemployment, housing, education, civic engagement, health and environmental quality). The results show that joint deprivation in at least five dimensions of well-being is starkly concentrated among 316 communes, representing as many as 5.2 million inhabitants (7.7% of the French population).

This report provides an assessment of the Swedish corporate bond market and policy recommendations to improve its functioning, drawing from detailed empirical analysis and in-depth interviews with market participants. It includes two empirical chapters which provide insights into the market's evolution over the last two decades based on original data, emphasising changes since the 2008 financial crisis with respect to market size, issuer characteristics, credit quality, industry composition and investor universe. These developments are also considered in an international context, comparing the Swedish market with selected peer countries, both in Europe and elsewhere.

This report provides an overview of green budgeting practices across OECD countries based on the 2022 OECD Green Budgeting Survey, as well as the index methodology for the Survey. It takes stock of OECD countries’ progress in bringing climate and environmental considerations into budgeting frameworks and processes. Green budgeting involves a systematic approach across all stages of the budget process, including financial reporting and budget oversight. The growth in green budgeting in OECD countries, as shown in the report, demonstrates the key role of budget offices in ensuring that policy priorities relating to climate change and the environment are taken into account when allocating resources through the budget process.