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Transition and emerging economies have difficulties developing their financial markets to a level that would provide access to long-term debt finance at an affordable cost. This report examines opportunities beyond the public sector for financing water and other environmental infrastructure. Specifically, opportunities for accessing savings through private financial and capital markets have been examined. The report identifies bottlenecks to the development of local financial markets for environmental infrastructure and discusses policy recommendations to tackle them.
The competition to stage major global events – such as OIympic Games, EXPOs, cultural festivals, and political summits – is more intense than ever before. Despite advances in virtual communication, large-scale gatherings of this kind have again become extraordinarily popular. In part, this can be explained by the worldwide media attention and sponsorship that such events now generate. But it is also substantially accounted for by the longer-term local benefits that can be achieved for the host location, including: improved infrastructure, increased revenues from tourism and trade, employment creation and heightened civic pride. However, such positive effects do not occur by accident, or without effective local action. Effective legacy planning and management is essential to ensure that the financial risk of investing in the event pays off, and that local development is boosted in a meaningful way.
Put simply, when international events are hosted well, they become a catalyst for local development and global reach. This book identifies how international events work as a trigger for local development and what hosting cities and nations can do to ensure that positive local development is realised. It reviews experience from more than 30 cities and nations and it looks forward to future events yet to be hosted.
Innovation, skills, entrepreneurship and social cohesion are key drivers of growth, and essential goals of effective economic development strategies. Each has a strong governance component, which requires real partnership between government, business and civil society. In this book, the OECD has brought together top world experts to translate policy lessons into concrete recommendations that will help policy makers and practitioners make the best governance decisions to stimulate growth.
Local development strategies represent an important response to the challenges of globalisation, while providing a mechanism for seizing the new opportunities that globalisation offers. Nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin wall, this book evaluates progress made and identifies what needs to be done to speed up the drive towards prosperity in Central and Eastern Europe. It demonstrates that the success of local development strategies depends on the capacity of the government and its partners to accelerate change within the policy and governance aspects of economic and social development.
To combat persistent unemployment and growing disparities, employment and training policies need re-organising to become more effective. Governments are endeavouring to achieve this by increasing the involvement of local and regional authorities, social partners, the private sector and the community in policy design and implementation.
Co-ordinating the efforts of these stakeholders, all involved at different levels, is a major challenge for governments. Local management of employment and training makes for more flexibility and hence better use of all available resources. This publication looks at the decentralisation of active labour market policies in OECD countries and shows how local employment management can lead to the implementation of more effective policies.
To better respond to a new set of concerns of the population and promote sustainable development, governments today actively seek a broad partnership with civil society and the private sector. Yet, it is at local and regional levels, closer to the problems and the individuals, that partnerships are most often formed. Partnerships are being established throughout OECD countries to tackle issues of economic development, employment, social cohesion and the quality of life. What all partnerships share is a common desire to improve governance -- how society collectively solves its problems and meets its needs. Through partnerships, civil society and its NGOs, enterprises and government at different levels work together to design area-based strategies, adapt policies to local conditions and take initiatives consistent with shared priorities. An ambitious mission, which raises the challenge of harmonising public accountability and participatory democracy.
Local Partnerships for Better Governance presents the lessons learnt from the most recent experiences in seven countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy and the United States. This book proposes a strategy that governments can implement to improve governance through partnerships. Applying this strategy will enforce local capacities in a globalising economy, and contribute to reconcile economic competitiveness, social cohesion and environmental progress.
Subnational governments’ capacity to effectively fund and deliver public services are crucial for the realisation of the benefits of decentralisation. However, subnational capacities often suffer from significant weaknesses, ranging from inadequate assignments of own-revenues, through to flaws in tax administration, the design of intergovernmental transfers, spending assignments and various aspects of public financial management. The volume discusses how better diagnostics and more strategic reforms can contribute to easing the resource constraints on subnational governments, as well as creating appropriate incentives for these governments to improve performance. The volume includes studies of the enabling conditions for subnational capacity building in Asia, as well as focused studies of China and India's fiscal relations challenges.
Logistics performance is a strong determinant of national income and policy-makers are interested in logistics performance indicators because of the potential for improved transport services to promote economic development. The World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index, for example, is regularly cited by Ministers. Key performance indicators are nevertheless open to misunderstanding and misuse in this sector as much as any other.
The Roundtable meeting was convened to improve understanding of logistics performance and measurement and exchange experience in developing comparable methods of assessment internationally. It examined how careful use of indicators can drive improvement, making recommendations for public sector organisations developing logistics performance indicators. Discussions also addressed issues particularly relevant to the establishment of a dedicated logistics observatory in Mexico.
Long-life surfaces could substantially cut the costs of road works, including the delays they cause, especially on congested routes with heavy traffic. These surfaces use new materials that cost more than conventional asphalt and require special handling. This report presents the results of collaborative research to evaluate the technical and economic potential of the most promising long-life surfaces (epoxy asphalt and high performance cementitious materials) and assist governments in weighing up the risks and advantages of introducing them on busy roads
As the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) accident illustrates, many challenges have to be faced in maintaining safety over the long term in a damaged NPP following a severe accident. These comprise maintaining and monitoring a stabilised and controlled state of the damaged plant; implementing provisions against further failures; evaluating the plant damaged state from a physical and radiological standpoint and ranking related risks; preparing and achieving fuel retrieval (either fuel assemblies stored in spent fuel pools or fuel debris from damaged reactors); and managing safely plant recovery and accident waste. All these actions are to be conducted protecting plant personnel from radiation exposure.
This status report reviews knowledge and experience gained through long-term management (LTM) of the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi accidents, by identifying and ranking main issues and knowledge gaps. It also reviews the existing regulations and guidance, practices, technical bases and issues considered in member countries of the Nuclear Energy Agency regarding LTM of a severely damaged nuclear site.
Finally, it proposes recommendations and areas for future investigation to enhance LTM of an NPP as regards necessary knowledge and provisions development, particularly for the optimisation of management of contaminated cooling waters.
The existing nuclear fleet remains the largest low-carbon source of electricity generation in OECD countries. In 2021 the average nuclear power plant had already been operating for 31 years and some 30% of reactors worldwide were already operating under long-term operation conditions. The long-term operation of this existing nuclear capacity will be essential over the next decade to keep decarbonisation targets within reach. At the same time, by keeping the long-term-operation option open, countries could also reap a wide-range of socio-economic benefits including more affordable and secure electricity supply. Nevertheless, an increasing number of reactors are being shut down earlier than expected due to policy decisions and increasing market pressures in some regions.
In light of these trends, this study takes a holistic approach to identifying the key enablers for long-term operation of nuclear power plants. The attractiveness of long-term operation lies in its technical maturity, cost-competiveness and ease of implementation: it is a high-value option to support the energy transition while minimising potential risks along the way.
This report is the third and final output of a ten-year international research project studying the costs and viability of long-life road pavement surfacings. It describes the results of tests conducted with epoxy asphalt and high performance cementitious materials (HPCM) on real road sections in France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The project was initiated to address a growing problem for road administrations and road users: frequent closures of roadways for repairs and repaving as a result of surface pavements that have improved but still barely kept up with increased loads and traffic density.
The growth of car use in several advanced economies has slowed down, stopped, or turned negative. The change can not be attributed to adverse economic conditions alone. Socio-demographic factors, including population ageing and changing patterns of education, working, and household composition matter. Rising urbanization and less car-oriented policies in some cities also reduce the growth of car use, perhaps combined with changing attitudes towards mobility. Some groups choose to use cars less, others are forced to.
This report summarizes insights into the drivers of change in car use. It shows that explanations are place-specific, and that projections of future car use are increasingly uncertain. The task for policy-makers is to identify mobility strategies that are robust under an increasingly wide range of plausible scenarios.
This study reports on the latest trends in long-term care policies in nineteen OECD countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Mexico, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It studies lessons learned from countries that undertook major reforms over the past decade. Trends in expenditure, financing and the number of care recipients are analysed based on new data on cross-country differences. Special attention is given to experience with programmes that provide consumers of services with a choice of care options, including cash to family caregivers. Concise country profiles of long-term care systems and an overview on demography and living situations of older persons make this complex policy field more accessible.
The scope of this report covers 88 public and private pension funds from 39 countries. This survey is based on a qualitative questionnaire sent directly to large pension funds and public pension reserve funds. It covers the infrastructure investment made by large pension funds and public pension reserve funds, but also their approach to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. It helps provide detailed investment information and insights which complement the aggregated data on portfolio investments gathered by the OECD at a national level through the Global Pension Statistics and Global Insurance Statistics projects.
The studies in this volume review concerns that exporters and governments have raised about market access. This publication analyses where and why certain non-tariff measures are being applied to traded goods that are covered by multilateral rules and disciplines, and how they continue to represent challenges for exporters and policy makers. The specific measures examined are prohibitions and quotas, non-automatic import licensing schemes, customs fees and charges and export restrictions. By drawing together available recent data and other information, this volume expands the knowledge base of policy makers, negotiators and anyone interested in learning about the use of these measures across countries, applicable international trade rules and remaining market access issues.
This roadmap outlines emissions reduction potential from all technologies that can be implemented in the Indian cement industry. Taking into account the specificities of the Indian context, markets and opportunities, this roadmap outlines a possible transition path for the Indian cement industry to support the global goal of halving CO 2 emissions by 2050.
The cement sector is the third-largest industrial energy consumer and the second-largest industrial CO2 emitter globally. Rising global population and urbanisation patterns, coupled with infrastructure development needs, drive up the demand for cement and concrete and increase pressure to accelerate action in reducing the carbon footprint of cement production.
Under a scenario that considers announced carbon mitigation commitments and energy efficiency targets by countries, the cement sector would increase its direct CO2 emissions just 4% globally by 2050, for an expected growth of 12% in cement production over the same period. However, more ambitious action would be needed to achieve global climate goals.
This Technology Roadmap builds on the long-standing collaboration of the IEA with the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). It provides an update of the Cement Technology Roadmap 2009: Carbon Emissions Reductions up to 2050, and sets a strategy for the cement sector to achieve the decoupling of cement production growth from related direct CO2 emissions through improving energy efficiency, switching to fuels that are less carbon intensive, reducing the clinker to cement ratio, and implementing emerging and innovative technologies such as carbon capture. The report therefore outlines a detailed action plan for specific stakeholders to 2050 as a reference and a source of inspiration for international and national policy makers to support evidence-based decisions and regulations.
Low-level radioactive waste (LLW) arises in the normal operation of nuclear power plants and fuel cycle facilities, as well as from the use of radioactive isotopes in medicine, industry and agriculture. This report sets out the costs of operating disposal sites for LLW in OECD countries, as well as the factors that may affect the costs of sites being developed. This publication will be of special interest to experts in the field of radioactive waste management and economics of the nuclear fuel cycle.
There is no country or economy participating in PISA 2012 that can claim that all of its 15-year-old students have achieved a baseline level of proficiency in mathematics, reading and science. Poor performance at school has long-term consequences, both for the individual and for society as a whole. Reducing the number of low-performing students is not only a goal in its own right but also an effective way to improve an education system’s overall performance – and equity, since low performers are disproportionately from socio-economically disadvantaged families.
Low-performing Students: Why they Fall Behind and How to Help them Succeed examines low performance at school by looking at low performers’ family background, education career and attitudes towards school. The report also analyses the school practices and educational policies that are more strongly associated with poor student performance. Most important, the evidence provided in the report reveals what policy makers, educators, parents and students themselves can do to tackle low performance and succeed in school.