Browse by: "I"

While Central Asia has proven relatively resilient to the shocks of COVID-19, China’s slowdown and Russia’s war in Ukraine, declining trend rates of growth across the region, lacklustre productivity performance and lingering global uncertainty underscore the need to address weaknesses in the business and investment climate. The implementation of predictable rules, the creation of a level-playing field between firms and greater competition in markets, in particular, could encourage both local entrepreneurs and foreign investors to invest and grow in the region. This report presents an assessment of progress since the 2019-2020 analysis of the legal environment for business and investment in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan against the backdrop of the changing international context brought about by COVID and the war.

This report reflects on the OECD’s co-operation with Africa on tax matters and the importance of the international tax agenda for African economies. It discusses Domestic Resource Mobilisation (DRM) efforts within African policy objectives and priorities, including the African Union’s Agenda 2063, and which actions should be taken to further increase DRM in Africa. The report analyses African involvement in discussions on corporate tax and how African participation in policy-setting and technical discussions could be further improved. In particular, it shows how African voices have shaped the design of the Two-Pillar Solution to Address the Tax Challenges Arising from the Digitalisation of the Economy, and discusses its benefits for African countries and challenges for implementation. In addition, the report provides an overview of OECD’s initiatives to support capacity building on tax in Africa, many of which are undertaken in partnership with other international and regional organisations. Finally, the report reflects on the broader tax policy agenda including VAT, tax transparency, tax and crime, digitalisation of tax administrations, and tax and informality. This report was prepared by the OECD to inform the discussions at the October 2023 Africa Roundtable in Marrakech hosted by G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors.

Globalisation and rapid technological change have radically transformed labour markets, affecting the lives and prospects of billions of workers. Those in the informal economy, the vast bulk of the workforce in the Global South, have been bearing the brunt. This report is for policy makers seeking to address the factors that make those workers in informality vulnerable. It provides them with a distinctive cross-country comparison of recent informality trends, and how they were affected by the recent crises such as the COVID-19 epidemic, casting light on the impacts of sub-contracting models in global value chains, and digital labour platforms. It argues that an inclusive recovery and greater resilience to future crises necessitate that many countries renew their social contracts, to make them more inclusive of informal workers and their families.

The consequences of climate change in developing countries are worsening fast: many ecosystems will shortly reach points of irreversible damage, and socio-economic costs will continue to rise. To alleviate the future impacts on populations and economies, policy makers are looking for the spaces where they can make the greatest difference. This report argues that intermediary cities in developing countries are such spaces. Indeed, in the context of fast population growth and urbanisation, these small and medium-sized cities silently play an essential role in the rapid transformation of human settlements, not least by supporting the massive flows of population, goods and services between rural and metropolitan areas. Most of those intermediary cities are still growing: now is therefore the time to influence their dynamics, and thereby the entire design of urbanisation in those regions, in ways that limit the exposure of urban dwellers to climate shocks and avoid carbon lock-in. To that end, based on fresh evidence and policy analysis on the challenges faced by these agglomerations in the context of climate change, the report makes the case for new development approaches to avoid the unsustainable paths followed by too many cities in the recent past.

This report represents the second outcome of the collaboration between the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to improve the measurement and analysis of productivity developments across APO and OECD member economies. The report discusses the potential impact of COVID-19 on productivity and examines the role of Multifactor Productivity (MFP) as a major driver of economic growth and changes in living standards. It then identifies the most important factors influencing MFP growth and describes the most important challenges affecting the measurement of each of these factors as well as the estimation of their impact on MFP. The report provides key recommendations to improve the reliability and interpretation of the empirical evidence for economic analysis.

Italy's National Action Plan for Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD) brings together the institutional mechanisms, evaluation frameworks and coherence tools needed to integrate sustainable development into government policy making. This Action Plan shows how to streamline existing mechanisms to improve policy coherence across levels of government and to involve civil society more closely in policy formulation. It also suggests how to make the most of complementarities across existing data collection efforts. The Action Plan includes suggestions for better linking mandates across departments and levels of government to avoid overlap and make greater progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Finally, it provides targets and measurable processes for each action to help track progress.

At their High-Level Meeting (HLM) in 2020, members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) set out a number of commitments and aspirations to align development co-operation with the objectives of international agreements to fight climate change and protect the environment. One year later, this report documents the individual and collective steps taken to give effect to the four voluntary commitments set out in the HLM Communiqué. It provides information on provisions and actions taken by DAC members to systematically integrate international environment and climate goals into development co-operation, to pursue more coordinated approaches, to support the transition of developing countries towards sustainable development pathways, and to better address the particular needs of Small Island Developing States.

How can governments support the private sector’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This book investigates the contribution of firms to the SDGs, particularly through their core business, taking into account inter-sectoral linkages and global value chains, using novel techniques and data sources. Despite the fact that the private sector has the potential to contribute to a wide range of SDGs, and that many firms find it economically viable to develop sustainable products and services, firms still face significant hurdles in their sustainability transition. Based on this new evidence, this book provides some recommendations on the design of industrial policies to enhance the contribution of businesses to the SDGs.

El informe de la OCDE sobre Igualdad de género en Chile: hacia una mejor distribución del trabajo remunerado y no remunerado es el primero de una serie que aborda los países de América Latina y el Caribe. El informe compara las brechas de género en los resultados laborales y educativos en Chile con otros países. Presta particular atención a la distribución desigual del trabajo no remunerado y la carga adicional que esto implica para las mujeres. Así mismo, investiga cómo las políticas y programas en Chile pueden hacer que esta distribución sea más equitativa. La primera parte del informe examina la evidencia sobre las brechas de género y sus causas, incluyendo el papel que juegan los estereotipos de género. La segunda parte desarrolla un marco de trabajo integral para abordar estos desafíos, presentando una amplia gama de opciones para reducir la carga del trabajo no remunerado que recae sobre las mujeres, y para aumentar los ingresos laborales de estas. La última parte analiza el impacto de la crisis de COVID-19 y considera cómo las prioridades políticas del gobierno tendrán que adaptarse para afrontar estos desafíos.

Water-related infrastructure could contribute significantly to the development of the Mekong region. At the same time, poor water infrastructure could lead to development challenges for the countries in the region. Innovation for Water Infrastructure Development in the Mekong Region discusses the challenges facing the region as well as the possible innovative policy options, including those used in Emerging Asian countries, and with reference to the experiences of OECD member countries. It provides analysis and recommendations for the region’s policy makers to consider in their efforts to improve water infrastructure. The report first provides an overview of the socio-economic contributions and environmental challenges of the Mekong River. It then presents some potential new financing options for the development of water infrastructure, using digital tools such as Fintech and blockchain. It also examines the potential of using the spillover effect of tax revenues to attract private finance. It then goes on to discuss the importance of strengthening water infrastructure resilience against natural disasters, including the current COVID-19 pandemic, and finally analyses the challenges of water regulations in the Mekong region.

The development co-operation community needs to innovate to meet the global challenges ahead. Although it has an established track record for innovating partnerships, funding instruments and technologies, they are not enough to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals. This report synthesises the lessons emerging from an OECD Development Assistance Committee peer learning exercise on how innovation efforts can be strengthened, individually and collectively, to achieve the 2030 Agenda. The report is organised around three blocks – strategy, management and culture; organisation and collaboration; and, the innovation process – and provides recommendations on how innovation can best benefit poor and vulnerable people around the world.

Incrementar la productividad, mejorar la inclusión social y fortalecer las instituciones son prioridades de los países de América Latina y el Caribe, por lo que constituyen los tres pilares del Programa Regional para América Latina y el Caribe de la OCDE. La buena gobernanza y una cultura de la integridad sólida son indispensables para lograr estos tres objetivos. Los recientes casos de corrupción y el creciente descontento ciudadano propician un ambiente oportuno para promover la cultura de la integridad e implementar estrategias nacionales de integridad y anti-corrupción.
Este estudio se propone construir sobre el Compromiso de Lima, dedicado a la “Gobernabilidad Democrática frente a la Corrupción” y firmado por 34 países en ocasión de la Cumbre de las Américas, llevada a cabo en Lima en 2018. Así mismo, se sugieren acciones estratégicas para pasar de los compromisos a la acción y así dar resultados a la altura de las expectativas de los ciudadanos.

This report is a first step towards building a qualitative understanding of the way illicit or criminal activities interact with the economy, security and development of West African states. Going beyond a traditional analysis of illicit financial flows (IFFs), which typically emphasises the scale of monetary flows, the report examines the nature of thirteen overlapping, and oftentimes mutually reinforcing, criminal and illicit economies, with a view to identify their resulting financial flows and development linkages. In taking this approach, this report identifies the networks and drivers that allow these criminal economies to thrive, with a particular emphasis on the actors and incentives behind them. As a conclusion to this work, this report proposes a series of policy considerations to assist countries to prioritise and focus their responses to reduce the development impacts of IFFs. Resolving the problem of IFFs requires responding to underlying development challenges, and tackling all parts of the problem in source, transit and destination countries.