Uruguay
1995: Law 16,713; reforms the old-age pension system, creates a mixed system of old-age protection consisting of a publicly managed social insurance scheme and a mandatory private pension scheme, and regulates the establishment and operation of pension fund administrators.
This report provides information on the average tariff levels and on the use of tariff-rate quotas, export subsidies and export credits by selected OECD countries for temperate-zone agricultural products. The implications of further liberalisation of the various instruments over the medium term are examined. The effects of further trade liberalisation of agricultural markets over the medium-term depend significantly on the modalities and prevailing market conditions against which the liberalisation scenarios are compared. On market access, although the largest impact on world prices is from tariff reductions, each of the current trade policy instruments (i.e. out-of-quota tariffs, in-quota tariffs, and tariff rate quotas) would have to be liberalised to obtain the greatest impact.
On export subsidies, their current use is already at levels much lower than Uruguay Round commitments, and elimination would have modest effects for most commodities (except dairy products). This situation could change and further discipline on their use would prevent back-tracking. Export credits used by certain countries are also found to distort trade, although the effects on world markets and average prices remain relatively small, due to the small share of trade facilitated by these programmes and their small per-unit effect. Disciplines are necessary, however, to avoid even greater use of all forms of export competition policies. Countries have embarked on a new round of multilateral trade negotiations on agriculture. The challenge facing policy makers is to build upon the foundations of the URAA to further reduce trade distortions. This requires strengthening the disciplines already established and addressing weaknesses of the current agreement, such as those that have been identified in this report.
This chapter documents the overall development context in Uruguay, describing the current economic situation and the main investment policy reform efforts, and identifies specific challenges that hinder investment, economic growth, and well-being. It summarises the key findings in each policy area covered by the Review and provides tailored recommendations.
The education system in Uruguay has made good progress in pre-primary and basic education. Universal access has been reached in primary education. In addition, access to pre-primary education is good for children aged four and five, with coverage rates considerably above the average for the Latin America region. However, the completion rates of lower and upper secondary education remain unsatisfactory. The proportion of 15‐24 year-olds who have completed secondary school is one of the lowest in the region and has shown little improvement over the past decades compared to other countries of the region (29.7% in 2010 compared to 22.4% in 1990). Uruguay also has very high repetition rates in regional and international comparison, leading to a high number of overage students. Nevertheless, the repetition rate in public primary schools has decreased since 2002 and had almost halved by 2013. Also, student achievement in international assessments has decreased but remains above the regional average. A major concern is the significant proportion of students underperforming in secondary education. In PISA 2012, 55.8% of students demonstrated low levels of mathematics proficiency compared to 23.0% on average in the OECD.
In recent years, Uruguay has made remarkable progress in strengthening its macroeconomic management and improving its people’s well-being. The recovery from the Argentinian and Uruguayan crisis in 2001-02 saw the country begin its most extended period of economic growth. For most of the 2001-10 decade, stable macroeconomic policies and the favourable external environment allowed for solid growth and counteracted the devastating effects of the crisis. This is reflected in improvements in different dimensions of well-being. The country’s achievements are remarkable both by regional and OECD standards. As one of the few high-income countries in Latin America, and with the lowest levels of poverty and income inequality on the continent, Uruguay scores highly in areas such as life satisfaction, environmental quality, health, trust, perception of government and air quality (). Nevertheless, some challenges remain, including unequal access to education (particularly secondary), youth unemployment and social exclusion.
Uruguay is the only country in the world which has a five-year budget. A budget is prepared by each new government taking office and voted within 6 months of its swearing in, for the whole five-year government term. Each year, an annual revision (“budget update”) takes place, where the government reports budget implementation to the Parliament and some adjustments to the coming year’s budget can be made. Uruguay has done significant improvements in budget management in the last decade since 2005, achieving great results in terms of financial stability and funding predictability for spending institutions. The governance of the budget process has shifted, with the leadership for the budget process being now in the National Budget Unit and the Macroeconomic Assessment Unit (both located in the Ministry of Economy and Finance), and the Office of Planning and Budget (located in the Presidency) developing planning functions. While the new roles and responsibilities seem quite clear today, they are not yet institutionalised. This budget review aims to provide a detailed description of how Uruguay’s budget institutions work today and present roles and responsibilities of each actor in the budget process. It also analyses Uruguay’s budget practices in the light of OECD countries best practices, and proposes policy recommendations for further modernising Uruguay’s budget process, in particular in the areas of aligning the budget with medium-term strategic planning and measuring results.
EL codes: H50, H61, H80
Keywords: Uruguay, Five-year budget, Budget process, Strategic planning
Uruguay has long acknowledged the long-term benefits of an open and non-discriminatory international investment environment. As such, the country retains very few restrictions on establishment and operations of foreign-owned enterprises. This chapter examines the openness of Uruguay’s investment regime in relations to barriers to entry of foreign-owned firms and exceptions to national treatment. It also benchmarks the openness of Uruguay’s FDI regulatory regime against OECD and various other emerging economies through the OECD FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index, showing the level of openness far above the average encountered in developing countries and even most advanced economies.
Beatrice Ávalos, a Chilean national, holds a Ph.D. from St. Louis University, USA and is an associate researcher at the Centre for Advanced Research in Education, University of Chile, where she leads a research group on teacher related topics. She was awarded the 2013 National Prize in Educational Sciences by the Chilean government. Between 2007 and 2010 she co-ordinated the Chilean application of the IEA TEDS-M study at the Ministry of Education. Formerly, she was Senior Lecturer at University of Wales, Cardiff and Professor of Education at the University of Papua New Guinea, and more recently has participated in the Latin American UNESCO review of teacher policies. She has carried out consultancy work for several international organisations including The World Bank, UNESCO/OREALC, the Academy for Educational Development as well as on request of countries in Uruguay and Bolivia. She has published extensively on themes related to teachers, teacher education, policy and educational development both in Spanish and English. She has also contributed with articles to several International Handbooks on Leadership, Educational Change, School Improvement, Continuing Professional Development of Teachers and the International Handbook of Teacher Education.
Based on the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies, this chapter assesses the governance framework and institutional arrangements of digital government across ten governments considered to be advanced in the implementation of digital government. The assessment delves into issues such as the role of the digital government strategy, the institutional arrangements, the policy levers, the co-ordination mechanisms and the legal framework for digital services, strategies for public sector data and ICT procurement. Likewise, the chapter explores how these ten countries articulate and exploit synergies with other cross-cutting public sector agendas, such as open government, public sector innovation and administrative simplification. Furthermore, it describes how digital government units are financed and discusses existing funding mechanisms for strategic digital government projects and how they can serve as drivers of change. Finally, the chapter briefly covers mechanisms and tools for monitoring and assessing the impact of digital government activities.