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Cette brochure est publiée dans le cadre des activités du Régime pour l'Application de Normes Internationales aux Fruits et Légumes, créé en 1962 par l'OCDE. Elle fournit des commentaires et des illustrations en vue de faciliter l'interprétation commune des normes en vigueur et constitue donc un outil précieux tant pour les services de contrôle que pour les milieux professionnels responsables de l'application des normes ou s’intéressant au commerce international de ces produits.
Why Fish Piracy Persists: The Economics of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing focuses on the economic, environmental and social aspects of fish piracy and identifies the forces that drive this activity. Based on data from a workshop of around 120 experts, as well as analytical documents developed for this study, this book presents the most systematic and consolidated information to date in order to assess measures already in place and to propose new solutions.
There is broad political support for lifelong learning because it is so vital to sustained economic progress and social cohesion in the "new economy". But its implementation is potentially costly and depends on making the learning process more cost-effective and on securing financial and in-kind resources from the private sector.
What can be done to keep lifelong learning from becoming prohibitively expensive, and to ensure that there are strong and transparent incentives to invest in it ? This book looks at recent experience of selected OECD countries as they have articulated their goals and strategies for lifelong learning. It examines policies and practices that influence the rates of return to lifelong learning, and mechanisms that are being put in place to channel financial resources to lifelong learning. It identifies resource issues that need to be addressed if lifelong learning is to be an affordable and workable guide to public policy.
Drawing on data from the OECD’s Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA), this report examines the performance of students with immigrant backgrounds and compares it to that of their native counterparts. As well as providing information on countries’ approaches to the integration of immigrants, it looks at other factors that could influence immigrant students’ performance – such as their attitudes to school, their motivation and learning strategies as well as their social background and the language spoken at home – giving valuable implications for educational policy.
These ambitious questions are addressed in What Schools for the Future?, a publication produced by the OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI). Drawing on an extensive international body of statistical and research evidence, the book analyses the social, economic, and educational trends of the 21st century. It also presents six possible scenarios for school systems over the next 10-20 years. The analysis is completed by contributions from eight international experts, looking with different perspectives at the challenges facing schools today and tomorrow.
Facing the collapse of their business and stiff competition from road transport, Eastern European railways are in a critical financial situation. Railway restructuring is a must, but where circumstances in each country are so different there can be no “one size fits all” solution. Nevertheless, some guidelines for restructuring are emerging. The strategies to be implemented will involve both governments and the railway companies themselves.
Separating infrastructure from operations, for instance, could be a good model provided infrastructure usage is priced efficiently. Concessions should be granted for local and regional passenger services. Freight transport issues have to be addressed at a European level - and open access should be the fundamental rule along with encouraging new market entrants.
Privatising the railways is probably not a prerequisite; their independence, however, is essential. Their management should be exactly the same as that of any other commercial company on the market and they should have appropriate management tools. Railways should focus their investment on new technologies and automation, difficult problems with reducing overstaffing can be resolved only with government co-operation.
Based on a review of the strengths and weaknesses of the railways in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe and in the Commonwealth of Independent States, this Round Table comes to a series of inescapable conclusions for anyone wishing to address these issues.
Despite the fact that the freight transport market in Europe almost doubled in volume over the period 1970 to 1995, growth in the inland waterway sector has remained stagnant. Until now the waterways have primarily been used to transport goods produced by sectors that have been hard hit by industrial restructuring. However, the past does not necessarily hold the key to the future. Waterways can be readily incorporated into logistics chains in which regular supply streams and low transport costs are more important than speed. The transportation of hazardous materials and container transport also offer promising markets.
The Round Table identified a number of policy measures which could help to promote development in the inland waterways sector (discontinuation of scrapping policies, support for the grouping of enterprises and the creation of co-operatives, incentives for private-sector investment). Reading the proceedings of this Round Table offers an opportunity to look at the inland waterways in a wholly new light which shows that there is a genuine future for this mode provided that operators are prepared to become entrepreneurs.
The report links the results from the OECD PISA 2000 survey to qualitative evidence on important public policy measures in six countries that performed well in PISA. These measures included strategies for educational reform and innovation; issues of governance and resource allocation; national approaches to standard-setting, assessment and system monitoring; the organisation of support systems; the professional development of teachers; and approaches to addressing socio-economic differences in students’ backgrounds. Countries covered: Canada, England, Finland, France, the Netherlands and Sweden.
On 23 July 2001, negotiators from 178 nations reached an unexpected political agreement on how to proceed with the international struggle against unwanted climate change.Specifically,they set out detailed rules for implementing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climat Change.Participants and observers in Bonn, Germany quickly dubbed the accord a turning-point in the fight against global warming. But the document enshrining the agreement was so technical and allusive as to be incomprehensible to all but experts.This pamphlet, prepared by analysts in the International Energy Agency ’s Energy and Environment Division, sets out the terms of the Bonn agreement in layman ’s language. As in several earlier publications of this kind, the IEA seeks to inform the public debate and place it in context in a thoroughly dispassionate and objective way.
Agriculture is a major user of water and is responsible for much of its pollution. But the agricultural sector faces increasing competition for scarce water supplies from urban and industrial users and, increasingly, to sustain ecosystems. This conference proceedings explores how both governments and the private sector can expand the role of markets to allocate water used by all sectors and to get agricultural producers to account for the pollution that their sector generates.
In the former Soviet Union, extensive networks were constructed to supply urban populations with clean, safe water. However, the networks were not well designed and this resulted in low quality water services and high operation and maintenance costs. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the condition of water infrastructure deteriorated more dramatically following sharp decreases in public budgets and the continued tradition of providing water services virtually free of charge. Without urgent action, the quality of services will continue to worsen and, in some of the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union, may even collapse, with serious consequences for human health and economic activity.
This volume analyses the causes underlying this dire situation and presents recommendations for addressing it which were adopted at a meeting of Economic/Finance and Environment Ministers held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in October 2000. The meeting was organized within the framework of the EAP Task Force, with its Secretariat at OECD, and involved key stakeholders from the governmental and non-governmental sectors. The EAP Task Force will implement a focused programme of work guided by the main recommendations agreed by participants.
This report examines the progress made in water management in OECD countries in the light of the objectives of Agenda 21. It presents the experience of the OECD programme of environmental performance reviews and focuses on issues of sustainable use of water resources, pollution control and water economics.
Environmental performance reviews of Australia, Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States have already been published.
Water is a vital resource for human health, economic development and environmental quality. Over the past three decades, OECD Member countries have made major strides in the management of their water resources. Increasingly, however, water is coming back onto the policy agenda. Persistent water quality problems, the need for heavy investments in water delivery and treatment infrastructure, and growing competition for finite supplies are forcing greater attention on the mix of policies needed to achieve efficient and effective integrated water resources management.
The integrated management of water resources is not a new concept. The notion of "integration", however, is evolving. Greater emphasis is being given to the full recognition of the water needs of the environment in pricing policies, allocation decisions and institutional reform. There is also a growing number of examples of the integration of a wider range of stakeholders, including the private sector and local communities, in water resources planning and management.
This report presents the discussions and conclusions of the OECD workshop on sustainable water consumption, which was held in Sydney, Australia (10-12 February 1997). Drawing on examples from OECD Member countries and selected countries from the Asia-Pacific, it examines progress made on a range of key water policy issues and examines some of the more innovative attempts to put into practice a wider vision of integration.
Eradicating poverty has long been one of the priorities of development co-operation. Yet, despite undoubted progress towards this goal, the strategies adopted at the international and national levels remain controversial. Poverty reduction is a complex issue, involving numerous players in a host of economic, social, political and environmental policy fields. The originality of this publication lies in its approach to identifying best practice, an approach which is as open and thorough as the state of the art will allow. How realistic is it to seek to cut extreme poverty by half by the year 2015? What are the most effective strategies employed by donors, be they development agencies or developed countries? What lessons can be learned from the experience of the developing countries? Clearly, these and many other questions are still unresolved. This publication approaches them by giving a broad overview of general poverty-reduction strategies and objectives. It also presents five particularly enlightening case studies on Bolivia, Côte d’Ivoire, the State of Kerala in India, Malaysia and Uganda.
Traditionally, pay analysis in the public sector has been based on cross section data, such as average or median wages. This study differs in that micro longitudinal data are used to explain and compare pay determination in the French and Italian civil services. Based on examples, the report presents different readings obtained from aggregate data and individual longitudinal data. It focuses on the weight of various components of human capital -- gender, age, year of birth, seniority, educational level -- on trends in civil servants' pay throughout working life. This type of analysis sheds new light in the area of human resource management in the civil service and, in particular, may be seen as a key tool for analysing gender pay discrimination.
Do voluntary approaches deliver the expected environmental benefits? Do they help reach environmental targets in a cost-effective way? This report provides an assessment of the use of voluntary approaches building on a number of new case studies. Analysis is on the environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency and the administrative costs either used in isolation or as part of “policy mixes”. The book concludes that the environmental effectiveness of voluntary approaches is often questionable, and their economic efficiency is generally low.
Voluntary approaches are schemes whereby firms make commitments to improve their environmental performance.They cover arrangements such as public voluntary programmes, negotiated agreements or unilateral commitments. Until recently, voluntary approaches have not been subject to systematic analysis, inasmuch as, unlike taxes and tradable permits, they have not been prescribed by economic theory. Voluntary approaches were "invented" by those who devise and implement them: policy-makers, business associations, individual firms, non-governmental associations, etc.
The use of voluntary approaches in environmental policy (e.g.negotiated agreements between Government and industry) is spreading and attracting growing interest in OECD countries. This book provides a systematic analysis of the different types of voluntary approaches, their economic characteristics, their role and effectiveness.
This report reviews vehicle emissions standards in Europe, Japan and the United States, providing the reader with valuable comparisons. It also examines incentives for sulphur free fuels - which can contribute to reducing both conventional air emissions and carbon dioxide. It describes emissions control technologies and the impact of emissions on health and the environment and assesses the adequacy of emissions limits for new passenger cars and heavy duty diesel engines.
The reader will find in this publication the recommendations which the Round Table made on ways to combat vandalism, namely: the creation of local partnerships between all actors involved in crime prevention, policing and law enforcement; exchanges of experience; the issuing of guidelines on crime prevention and infrastructure design; and publication of case studies of successes and failures.
Economic valuation is widely used in OECD countries as a way of assessing the (usually monetary) value of goods that have no markets. In the rural context, valuation methods are used to argue for or against projects and policy choices in areas as diverse as agricultural support policies, local economic development, land use and biodiversity assessment.
This volume reviews a range of different valuation methodologies -- stated preferences, cost-benefit, revealed preferences, and others -- and looks at how these different approaches influence choices in rural policy. Its aim is to assess whether some set of international guidelines or standards could be used to reduce the subjectivity of the evidentiary information.