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The OECD Secretary-General's annual report to ministers covers the OECD’s 2017 activities and some 2018 highlights. It includes the Secretary-General's activities and those of his office, the OECD’s horizontal programmes and directorate activities, as well as the activities of its agencies, special entities and advisory committees.
For more than 50 years, the OECD has sought to promote better policies for better lives in almost all areas of policy making and implementation through co-operation, dialogue, consensus and peer review. The OECD is one of the world’s largest and most trusted sources of comparable statistical data on economics, trade, employment, education, health, social issues, migration, the environment, and many other fields.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are highly intertwined with sectors such as health, education, energy or agriculture. Hence, measuring official development finance (ODF) flowing to sectors is critical to designing efficient development strategies in the SDG era. Yet, this exercise is complex, and this report is a first attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of ODF allocations by sector.
The analysis includes not only official development assistance (ODA), but also other official flows (OOF) and resources mobilised from the private sector by official development interventions. It provides unique data for the period 2012-16 on sectors financing by country, type of instrument and channel of delivery. It looks into potential data gaps and the challenge of matching the traditional typologies of donors’ investment by sector with their expected, multi-sectoral outcomes, as framed by the SDGs. The report provides policy makers and sectoral experts with some insights into the implications of the 2030 Agenda for the sectoral strategies of development co-operation providers.
The world has made good progress in improving global livelihoods. More than two billion people have emerged from extreme poverty over the last four decades. Other notable improvements include real increases in wages for unskilled workers, better life expectancy, greater gender equality and more widespread literacy. However, a number of daunting challenges threaten to undo this progress, particularly on the demographic and environmental fronts. While outlining the status of livelihoods today, this fascinating report enumerates the main emerging trends which will have a significant impact on livelihoods in the near future. It looks at a whole range of issues: economy, technology, demography, environment, security and governance. This book presents five possible future scenarios for livelihoods, whose positive or negative outcomes depend on how several emerging challenges are dealt with. It concludes with ideas for global, national and local action that hold significant promise for securing resilient livelihoods for all.
This publication continues efforts by the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to develop tools and instruments for conflict prevention and for improving security and stability in the long term. The guidance underlines the positive role that the integrated reform of a country’s security system can play in stabilising fragile, conflict-prone or conflict affected states. This includes not only the armed forces, police and gendarmerie, intelligence services and justice and penal systems, but also the civil authorities responsible for oversight and democratic control.
Part I contains a policy statement and paper endorsed in 2004 by development ministers and agency heads of the DAC and by the OECD council. It sets out the key concepts of security system reform (SSR) and suggests ways to support it in developing countries, taking into account regional dynamics. In Part II, a lead consultant examines the origins of the SSR agenda and the challenges that donors face in promoting it in partner countries. The Annex to the publication contains work by an expert working in each of the four regions: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and South-east Europe, the Baltics and the CIS. It sets out their assessment of the changes that are taking place in the way that developing countries in these regions think about security and provides an account and analysis of individual reform activities currently being undertaken.Settlement dynamics have been reshaping West Africa’s social and economic geography. These spatial transformations – high urbanisation and economic concentration – favour the development of market-oriented agriculture.
With the population of West Africa set to double by 2050, agricultural production systems will undergo far-reaching transformations. To support these transformations, policies need to be spatially targeted, improve availability of market information and broaden the field of food security to policy domains beyond agriculture. They need to rely on homogeneous and reliable data – not available at present – particularly for key variables such as non-agricultural and agricultural population, marketed production and regional trade.
In this 1996 report, the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) set a number of measurable international development goals. Subsequently, the commitment to halve world poverty became the focus of most donor organisations through the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Long central to UN programmes, this focus on poverty reduction became key to IMF and World Bank lending to low‑income countries.
This report examines the effects of recent economic growth in Viet Nam on social cohesion. It finds that recent rapid economic growth in Viet Nam has not resulted in an increase in overall inequality, but the level of inequality was already high. Growth was not particularly inclusive, benefiting most the middle class and the richest households, and favouring less households in the bottom 20th percentile. Income mobility was also high, and while a majority of households experienced upward income mobility, downward absolute income mobility affected one in five households. Economic growth was not particularly job rich with employment growth lagging behind economic expansion.
In particular, important challenges were identified in the area of education and skills policies relating to fast-changing labour market needs. Minimum wage policies had a small but positive effect on employment, but concerns were highlighted over partial coverage and weak compliance. Tax policy and specifically personal income tax had only a small impact on reducing inequality, but transfers from central to local governments produced an equalising effect, albeit with mixed results in terms of satisfaction with public services. Finally, social protection systems have been extended, but important coverage gaps remain among the poor and ethnic minority groups, and informality remains a key challenge for universal extension.
This publication is a sequel to the OECD 2015 report on Social Impact Investment (SII), Building the Evidence Base, bringing new evidence on the role of SII in financing sustainable development. It depicts the state of play of SII approaches globally, comparing regional trends, and assesses its prospects, with a special focus on data issues and recent policy developments. Importantly, it provides new guidance for policy makers in OECD and non-OECD countries, as well as providers of development co-operation, development financers, social impact investment practitioners and the private sector more broadly, to help them maximise the contribution of social impact investing to the 2030 Agenda. In particular, it provides four sets of recommendations on financing, innovation, data and policy for delivering on the “impact imperative” of financing sustainable development.
The positive impacts of social protection on reducing poverty and inequality and contributing to development are well evidenced. Establishing an integrated system facilitates the provision of a social protection floor, whereby individuals are appropriately protected throughout the life cycle. This is achieved not only by making sure there is a sufficient range of programmes to cover a population’s risk profile but also by sharing information on different individuals to ensure they are linked to an appropriate programme.
The Social Protection System Review is one of a small number of tools that serve to analyse how effective a country is in establishing a social protection system that responds to the needs of its people both today and in the future. The toolkit presents methodologies which can be implemented in any country, at any income level and by any institution. It is intended to generate policy recommendations that are actionable through national systems.
In 2017, the Royal Government of Cambodia published a new Social Protection Policy Framework (SPPF), providing an ambitious vision for a social protection system in which a comprehensive set of policies and institutions operate in sync with each other to sustainably reduce poverty and vulnerability.The Social Protection System Review of Cambodia prompts and answers a series of questions that are crucial for the implementation ofthe framework : How will emerging trends affect the needs for social protection, now and into the future? To what extent are Cambodia’s social protection instruments able – or likely – to address current and future livelihood challenges? How does fiscal policy affect social protection objectives?
This review provides a contribution to the ongoing policy dialogue on social protection, sustainable growth and poverty reduction. It includes four chapters. Chapter 1 is a forward-looking assessment of Cambodia’s social protection needs. Chapter 2 maps the social protection sector and examines its adequacy. An investigation of the distributive impact of social protection and tax policy is undertaken in Chapter 3. The last chapter concludes with recommendations for policy strategies that could support the establishment of an inclusive social protection system in Cambodia, as envisaged by the SPPF.
Indonesia has made impressive progress in reducing income inequality and improving living standards since the Asian Financial Crisis but the decline in poverty has slowed in recent years while inequality has risen and a large part of the population remains vulnerable. The Government of Indonesia has recognised the potential of social protection to address these challenges and to underpin a long-term development strategy based on more inclusive economic growth. As a consequence, social assistance programmes have grown significantly in recent years while social insurance has undergone major reforms. The Government is gradually realising its vision of a system of social protection, based on comprehensive and coherent coverage for all age groups.The Social Protection System Review of Indonesia charts the evolution of social protection. It explores the current context for social protection and how this is likely to evolve in the future, analyses the extent to which existing programmes are aligned to those needs and how effective these programmes are at reducing poverty. It also examines the financing of social protection. Finally, it proposes policies to enhance the social protection system across a number of dimensions, including programmes, institutions, financing and information architecture.
Social protection is at the heart of Kyrgyzstan’s development and is a priority of public policy. Pension coverage among today’s elderly is universal and a large number of contributory and non-contributory programmes are in place to cover a wide range of risks. Kyrgyzstan has succeeded in maintaining the entitlements dating from the Soviet era while introducing programmes appropriate for its transition to a market economy. However, severe fiscal constraints have limited the coverage of these new arrangements and their capacity to adapt to challenges such as poverty, pervasive informality and emigration.
This strategic foresight report assesses the interaction between demographics, economic development, climate change and social protection in six countries in East Africa between now and 2065: Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The report combines population projections with trends in health, urbanisation, migration and climate change and identifies the implications for economic development and poverty. It concludes by identifying policies to address seven grand challenges for social protection planners in national governments and donor agencies which emerge from the projections. These include: eliminating extreme poverty; extending social insurance in a context of high informality; the rapid growth of the working-age population, in particular the youth; adapting social protection to urban settings; protecting the poor from the effects of climate change; harnessing a demographic dividend; and substantially increasing funding for social protection.
The global financial crisis has offered an important opportunity for Southeast Asian countries to rethink past growth strategies and project new development visions. This inaugural edition of the Southeast Asian Economic Outlook looks at current efforts to rebalance growth for the region and at what form growth will take in the future.
The analyses and discussions presented in this volume highlight the need to implement five-year development plans with a view to rebalancing growth and instituting a credible fiscal policy framework conducive to greater fiscal discipline. In particular, well-designed fiscal rules, independent fiscal agencies and a medium-term budgetary framework are crucial elements. Although such institutions are becoming increasingly important across OECD countries, there is room for improving the institutional settings in Southeast Asia.
The 2010 Outlook also addresses the fact that the future development of Southeast Asian countries is likely to be uneven across sectors and economies, unless necessary measures are taken. Sectors of new growth in the region will need to be supported by going beyond the current narrow range of electronic products and developing more niche and speciality products that are priorities of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Another area of policy action proposed is to develop more integrated transport networks. Given the huge investment needs for infrastructure development, new financing methods, such as infrastructure revenue bonds, should be further explored to promote public-private partnerships in the region.
This edition of the Southeast Asian Economic Outlook examines the macroeconomic situation, policies and medium-term growth prospects for countries in the region; structural challenges; green growth strategies, policies and institutions; and environmental taxes. It finds that growth for the region will moderate in the near term but solid growth performance will continue until 2016. To sustain this favourable outlook, countries need to meet considerable structural challenges. Green growth offers an alternative growth strategy in the long term.
This edition of the Southeast Asian Economic Outlook examines medium-term growth prospects, recent macroeconomic policy challenges, and structural challenges including human capital, infrastructure and SME development. It also looks at economic disparities “between” and “within” countries in the region. It provides coverage for Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam.
While solid growth is forecast to continue until 2017, countries must address structural issues in order to sustain this favourable outlook. Narrowing development gaps presents one of the region’s most important challenges.
This report reviews the policy mix to support knowledge-based start-ups in six countries in Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. It discusses role of public policies in supporting the creation of start-ups, it presents an overview of the rationale and scope of state intervention and it summarises the experience of OECD countries, focusing on Australia, Finland and Israel. The report provides a comparative assessment of the experience of the six Latin American countries. Following the literature and the experience of countries it develops a taxonomy of instruments targeted to promote entrepreneurship and it compares the policy mix available in the different countries in Latin America. It also identifies recommendations to improve the policy framework for start-up promotion in Latin America. Country notes are available for each of the six studied countries. The report has been elaborated in the framework of the Development Centre's policy dialogue on innovation policies in Latin America.
Start-ups are gaining momentum in Latin America. Start-up Latin America 2016: Building an innovative future reviews the dynamics of start-ups and the policies for start-up promotion in four countries in the region – Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. The report reviews the policy mix for start-up promotion and highlights the progress made by each country and future challenges. It identifies good practices in promoting start-ups and lessons learned in Latin America in the design and implementation of policies.
This 2015 OECD report on fragility contributes to the broader debate to define and implement post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It points out that addressing fragility in the new framework will be crucial if strides in reducing poverty are to be made. It argues in favour of proposed SDG 16 – promoting peaceful and inclusive societies – which aims to reduce violence of all forms.
The 2015 report differs markedly from previous editions as it seeks to present a new understanding of fragility beyond fragile states. It assesses fragility as an issue of universal character that can affect all countries, not only those traditionally considered “fragile” or conflict-affected. To do so, it takes three indicators related to targets of SDG 16 and two from the wider SDG framework: violence, access to justice, accountable and inclusive institutions, economic inclusion and stability, and capacities to prevent and adapt to social, economic and environmental shocks and disasters. It applies them to all countries worldwide, and identifies the 50 most vulnerable ones in all five dimensions. The group of countries most challenged on all five fronts differs little from the traditional list of fragile states and economies. Still, several middle-income countries with disproportionately high levels of crime-related violence, sub-national conflict or poor access to justice move into the spotlight.
The report concludes that making headway on the targets will require building a new portfolio of tools and interventions, and an understanding of the role the international community should and can play in assisting this process.