Slovak Republic
Insights from behavioural science are increasingly making their way into integrity policymaking. A behavioural approach acknowledges that behind the policies, laws, regulations, and tools there are human beings making decisions. Sometimes, these decisions are not aligned with what policies aim to achieve, undermining their effectiveness and impact.
An effective risk management system is dependent on the behaviours of several stakeholders and public servants’ commitment. To improve corruption risk management in the Slovak public sector, the OECD identified the behaviours that hinder an effective corruption risk management and analysed the barriers and enablers of these behaviours in a diagnostic analysis, following the application of the OECD BASIC framework. The key behaviour identified in a diagnostic analysis was that employees are not communicating about potential corruption risks as often as they should. Reasons for limited risk communication include a lack of support from leaders, a lack of feeling of safety when communicating about risks and a lack of awareness of how to communicate risks.
One of the central measures set out in the Anti-Corruption Policy of the Slovak Republic for the years 2019-2023 is to strengthen the identification and mitigation of corruption risks across the Slovak public sector. The experimental findings demonstrate the potential of applying behavioural insights to enhance already-existing corruption risk management policies. Both the intervention appealing to leadership, and the one supporting a better understanding of risks, when coupled with social norms messaging, significantly improved the likelihood of communicating integrity risks. This chapter outlines the recommendations that emerged from the analysis and experimental findings.
Under its Anti-Corruption Policy for 2019-2023, the Slovak Republic made corruption risk management a cornerstone of its strategic efforts to combat corruption and promote public integrity. This report focuses on the challenges faced in implementing corruption risk management practices from a behavioural perspective and proposes concrete avenues for increasing communication about corruption risks in the Slovak public administration.
This study has several limitations. For example, the distribution of the primary outcome variable (see Annex C) has clusters around tens (especially around 0, 50 and 100), which can have altered the results. This was likely due to the design of the survey (the answers to some questions were given on a continuous interval, with every tenth highlighted). This limitation was addressed by running several robustness checks (Logit, Tobit, OLS with rounded frequencies, means testing).
The Slovak Republic has reduced some environmental pressures over the past decade. However, it needs to do more to reduce air pollution, improve waste and wastewater treatment and move towards carbon neutrality. Since 2011, the country has taken important steps to improve its biodiversity policy. Slovakia needs to now align its strategy with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Most species and habitats are in an unfavourable state and biodiversity considerations are not sufficiently integrated into sectoral policies.
This is the third Environmental Performance Review of the Slovak Republic. It provides an evidence-based assessment of the country's progress towards its environmental goals over the past decade. The 29 recommendations aim to help Slovakia improve its environmental performance, giving special focus to biodiversity and forests in the context of climate change.
The Slovak Republic has a small, open economy that grew steadily between 2010 and 2019. After a deep contraction during the COVID-19 crisis, gross domestic product (GDP) rebounded in 2021 and has grown moderately since. Over 2010-19, the country reduced domestic material consumption, emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and major air pollutants, and to a lesser extent, energy supply and freshwater abstractions. However, air pollution remains a health concern; much municipal waste ends up in landfills; and progress in remediating contaminated sites has been slow. The country has improved wastewater treatment but faces the challenge of expanding coverage in the many small municipalities.
The principal aim of the OECD Environmental Performance Review (EPR) programme is to help member and selected partner countries improve their individual and collective performance in environmental management by:
This country profile features selected environmental indicators from the OECD Core Set, building on harmonised datasets available on OECD.stat. The indicators reflect major environmental issues, including climate, air quality, freshwater resources, waste and the circular economy, and biodiversity. Differences with national data sources can occur due to delays in data treatment and publication, or due to different national definitions and measurement methods. The OECD is working with countries and other international organisations to further improve the indicators and the underlying data.
As in most European countries, biodiversity in Slovakia is under pressure. Since 2011, the country has taken important steps to improve its biodiversity policy. However, it needs to now align its strategy with the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Most species and habitats are in an unfavourable state and biodiversity considerations are not sufficiently integrated into sectoral policies. This chapter reviews Slovakia’s policy to promote the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, examining both its effectiveness and efficiency. It assesses progress in mainstreaming biodiversity considerations into sectoral and other policies, particularly those related to forestry and climate change.