Brazil
Worsening relative bond spreads in early 2008 - an Eskom effect ? appears in OECD Economic Surveys: South Africa: Economic Assessment.
Good workforce planning is a characteristic of modern and dynamic human resource management. This chapter analyses the main strengths and windows of opportunity of workforce planning in the Brazilian federal government, in the light of the experience of OECD countries. The discussion includes: the size and costs of the workforce in the federal government; the accounting methodology of public employees and their costs; the challenges for proper strategic workforce planning; the promotion of a whole-ofgovernment approach for increasing efficiency and reducing the costs of the public workforce; the pay-setting process as part of the cost management strategy; the role of the unions in setting employment conditions; the need to adjust the public service to an ageing society and workforce; the modernisation of the public service pension system; and the promotion of diversity as a strategy to ensure the right competences and skills in the public service.
Brazil is struggling with a shortage and an uneven distribution of medical doctors across regions, compounded with a low credibility and recognition of the PHC specialty. To secure a greater number and distribution of primary care doctors and ensure a high-quality workforce, the first priority for Brazil is to implement a coherent workforce planning based on an objective assessment of present and future needs to govern health care human resources. In tandem, Brazil could look at the experiences of OECD countries to train more rural doctors and to provide both financial and non-financial incentives linked with a return of service obligation. A smarter use of nurses and community health workers is another option to cope with workforce gap. There are also opportunities to make the PHC specialty a mandatory requirement to be allowed to practise PHC, and to implement stronger requirements around continuous medical education.
This chapter makes the case for a more systematic use of economic instruments as a response to water challenges in Brazil. It explains the rationale for using economic instruments for sustainable water management and sets principles for setting and governing such instruments. The remainder of the report will focus on two specific economic instruments, namely abstraction and pollution charges.
This policy brief was developed by the Secretariat of the OECD Network of Economic Regulators (NER) and is based on examples of practice submitted by members of the NER. It reviews emergency measures taken by economic regulators during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure continuity of services in network sectors, as well as to adjust regulatory practices and adapt governance arrangements. It identifies long-term questions and implications of the crisis with regard to market structure, infrastructure investment and the role of regulators.
In recent years, the BCIS governments have incorporated the goal of reducing poverty and inequality into their approaches to more sustainable growth and have enacted some reforms in that direction. Tackling inequality traps requires improving economic opportunities for all, and this covers a variety of policy actions. Labour market and social policies have an important role to play, as they directly or indirectly affect household incomes. In countries with significant labour market segmentation between formal and informal employment, policies and measures directed exclusively at the formal labour market have a small influence, limiting their impact on reducing poverty and inequality. But, labour market policies can have a considerable impact on maintaining this labour market duality by making employment expensive and favouring underemployment and informality. In this kind of configuration, they could even become counterproductive with respect to reducing poverty and inequality.
This chapter presents an overview of empirical literature on high-growth enterprises. It reviews findings on the relationship between innovation and fast growth as well as the factors affecting this relationship. The chapter also presents evidence on the activities and experiences of high-growth and innovative SMEs in accessing finance.
This chapter analyses water governance achievements and challenges in Brazil, in the light of major reforms carried out over the past 17 years. It provides an institutional mapping of who does what across ministries and levels of government, and assesses how interdependencies across multiple stakeholders, public authorities and policy areas are managed. The analysis emphasises multi-level governance gaps and suggests policy recommendations to bridge them, building on international experience.