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This report aims to foster a better understanding on how to leverage the economic and social impacts of the implementation of the Internet into mobile devices to enable ubiquitous governments, sustain public sector innovation and transform public service delivery. The content of this report paves the way for the Report on Agile Government to be released by OECD in the Fall of 2011. The report is a joint-product of the collaboration of OECD with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
This Multi-level Governance Series study focuses on Ukraine’s advances in regional development, territorial reform and decentralisation since 2014. The Government launched a reform to merge local governments and strengthen the decentralisation process, giving additional power and resources to sub-national authorities. In a short period, successful steps have been taken toward achieving municipal mergers and greater fiscal, administrative and political decentralisation, complemented by the State Strategy for Regional Development 2015-2020. The first local elections have been held and more public services are being delivered by certain local authorities. Yet, important challenges remain, ranging from a need to address rising disparities and adjusting multi-level governance practices and territorial structures, to better structuring fiscal decentralisation. This report addresses regional performance and disparities in Ukraine, provides insight into Ukraine’s current territorial reform and approach to decentralisation, explores the impact of fiscal decentralisation measures, and includes a case study of the transport sector. It also provides a set of recommendations for action to support Ukraine in meeting the conditions for successful decentralisation.
This report offers a comprehensive overview of decentralisation policies and reforms in OECD countries and beyond. Sometimes called a “silent” or “quiet” revolution, decentralisation is among the most important reforms of the past 50 years. The report argues that decentralisation outcomes – in terms of democracy, efficiency, accountability, regional and local development – depend greatly on the way it is designed and implemented. Making the most of decentralisation systems is particularly crucial in the context of a “geography of discontent” and growing divides between places that feel left behind by globalisation and technological change and those that may benefit from the opportunities offered by megatrends. The report identifies 10 guidelines for making decentralisation work and allowing it to be conducive to regional development. Beyond the guidelines, the report proposes concrete tools for policy-makers, including detailed sets of recommendations, checklists, pitfalls to avoid and examples of good practices, both in unitary and federal countries.
This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the challenges confronting Chile’s centralised growth model and recommendations towards developing a more integrated territorial approach, capable of mobilising regional productivity catch-up potential in order to strengthen the role of regions and municipalities.
The Chilean government has launched an ambitious decentralisation agenda, aimed at empowering municipalities by providing them with the legitimacy, financial resources, human capacities and tools required to improve their autonomy and performance. This study seeks to assist the government by covering several dimensions, looking at municipal responsibilities, fiscal and human resources, equalisation mechanisms, local public service performance, citizen participation, and co-ordination mechanisms across levels of government.
Helping countries to improve the lives of their citizens requires effective international development co-operation. The Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation’s principles (country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and transparency and mutual accountability) have been guiding relationships between development partners for close to a decade, helping them to strengthen and improve the way they co-operate and ensuring that all citizens are invested in the process.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) work together to monitor progress in using these principles. In 2018, data was collected by 86 partner countries and territories, in collaboration with more than 100 development partners, to serve as the basis for this work and provide evidence. By highlighting where progress has been made and where challenges remain, the work helps governments and their partners strengthen collective action towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
This is the first integrated study undertaken by the OECD to analyse administrative simplification and e-government in a national context. By bringing those two areas together in the context of public management reform, this review helps countries identify how these reform activities can best support overall government performance and economic growth.
This report looks at crucial elements of reforms to growth-friendly recurrent taxes on immovable property. Tax design practices in place in OECD and partner countries are compared and analysed through the lenses of economic theory and empirical analysis. A set of good principles and options for reforming recurrent taxes on immovable property based on the latest experience of property tax reforms around the world are presented that are particularly relevant to the Chinese context, where broader use of recurrent taxes on residential properties is needed to make local public finances more sustainable. Challenges and practices related to the administration of property taxes are explored as well as their interplay with different tax designs. In addition, the main political and administrative hurdles in approving and implementing property tax reforms are discussed, and the approaches commonly employed in successfully dealing with them are examined. Although there are major challenges in designing, reforming and managing a recurrent property tax system, it is possible to overcome these in a manner that allows society to reap benefits in terms of a better allocation of resources, more stable house prices and a fairer income distribution.
OECD countries have made significant reform progress in recent decades, in fields as diverse as competition policy, health care and the environment. How have they done it? And why have reforms advanced in some places and stalled in others? This collection of essays analyses the reform experiences of the 30 OECD countries in nine major policy domains in order to identify lessons, pitfalls and strategies that may help foster policy reform in the future. While taking full account of the tremendous differences in the political and institutional settings in which these reforms were undertaken, the authors highlight a number of common challenges and potential solutions that hold good across both countries and issue areas. They show that the scope for cross-national policy learning is enormous.
The importance of such reform lessons is all the greater in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis. As OECD governments confront the challenge of trying to restore public finances to health without undermining the recovery, they will need to pursue a careful mix of fiscal policies and growth-enhancing structural reforms. Designing, adopting and implementing such a policy mix will require the crafting of effective reforms and effective strategies for implementing them.
The report provides evidence-based assessment and policy recommendations in support of Mexico’s water reform. It analyses implementation bottlenecks and identifies good practices in four key areas considered as essential drivers for change in the water sector of Mexico: multi-level and river basin governance; economic efficiency and financial sustainability; and regulatory functions for water supply and sanitation.
This report is the result of a one-year policy dialogue between the OECD and Mexico, after the adoption of the 2030 Water Agenda as a strategic and long-term vision for Mexico’s water sector.
This study examines the multi-level governance framework for public investment in Colombia. It provides a diagnosis of the strengths and challenges of the Colombian system and includes comparative data and a set of benchmarks to promote exchange of good practices and promote learning. It makes recommendations for how to further improve the system, make more effective use of existing resources and catch up to OECD countries in terms of infrastructure development . The review also suggests a set of indicators against which Colombia can measure its progress.
How to make the most of public investment? This question is critical in today’s tight fiscal environment. Given that sub-national governments in OECD countries carry out more than two thirds of total capital investment, they have played a key role in executing national stimulus packages during the global crisis. The effectiveness of recovery strategies based on public investment thus depends largely on the arrangements between levels of government to design and implement the investment mix. This report provides an overview of challenges met in the recovery and highlights good practices and lessons learned, focusing on eight country cases: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United States. As stimulus packages are being phased out since 2010, many countries have moved toward fiscal consolidation and targeted public investment as an adjustment variable. Co-ordination between levels of government was essential to implement recovery measures, and it is equally important to better prioritise reduced public investment and make the most of it for sustainable growth.
The Slovak Republic joined the European Union in 2004, the Schengen area in 2007 and the euro in 2009. These events, coupled with decentralisation reform and the creation of administrative regions, have brought significant change. While overall growth has been impressive compared to OECD countries overall, benefits have not accrued equally across the country. Public investment could potentially improve regional conditions and attract private funding, but governance bottlenecks stand in the way. This case study shows that the main obstacles to effective public investment are linked to high local fragmentation as well as the challenges national and subnational administrations face in designing and implementing investment strategies that correspond to local needs. Drawing on a detailed set of indicators, the study provides recommendations to address these challenges and make the most of public investment in the Slovak Republic.
Managing conflicts of interest in both the public and private sectors has become a major governance issue world-wide. Identifying and resolving specific conflicts of interest can be difficult. This Toolkit focuses on specific techniques, resources and strategies for identifying, managing and preventing conflict-of-interest situations more effectively and increasing integrity in official decision-making which might be compromised by conflicts of interest.
This Toolkit provides non-technical, practical help to enable officials to recognise problematic situations and help them to ensure that integrity and reputation are not compromised. The tools themselves are provided in generic form. They are based on examples of sound conflict-of-interest policy and practice drawn from various OECD member and non-member countries. They have been designed for adaptation to suit countries with different legal and administrative systems.
Governments need to ensure that public officials perform their duties in a fair and unbiased way. The pressure comes from a society and a business community that are increasingly well-informed, and specifically from a general demand for unbiased and transparent public decision-making. The OECD Guidelines for Managing Conflict of Interest in the Public Service provide the first international benchmark in this field. They help governments review and modernise their conflict-of-interest policies in the public sector. The report highlights trends, approaches and models across OECD countries in a comparative overview that also presents examples of innovative and recent solutions. Selected country case studies give more details on the implementation of policies in national contexts and on key elements of legal and institutional frameworks.
Decentralising labour market policy is a delicate and challenging subject of political debate. Does decentralisation really enable co-ordination of policies? At the local level, how do we make the best use of decentralised powers? How can greater flexibility be provided in managing policies while still guaranteeing efficiency and accountability? To enhance responsiveness to citizens’ needs, governments increasingly decentralise the way policies are designed and implemented. In the labour market policy area, many stakeholders, from business and local government to community groups and NGOs have been receptive. The OECD invited leading experts and experienced policy makers and practitioners to address these questions and share their experiences in dealing with such issues. This report, supported by statistical data, summarises the lessons learnt from their experiences. It is for researchers, leading experts, business communities, economists in government circles and NGOs.
Managing Public Expenditure presents a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of all aspects of public expenditure management from the preparation of the budget to the execution, control and audit stages. The book will be of general interest but is focused particularly on the needs of countries in transition, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe that seek to become members of the European Union.
The book provides practical, operational information and guidance on all areas of public expenditure management, e.g. legal and institutional frameworks, preparation of the budget, implementation, cash management, performance management, accounting, financial information and reporting systems, internal control and internal audit, and external audit. Each part of the book ends with key points and directions for reform. The detailed questionnaire will help practitioners to identify the strong and weak elements in their budget systems so that they can take necessary remedial action. Managing Public Expenditure ends with a comprehensive glossary, bibliography and index.
Richard Allen is an economist and spent most of his career at HM Treasury (the British Ministry of Finance), working mainly in the areas of fiscal policy, EU affairs, public expenditure management and international finance. He has also served as a diplomat in Washington DC and as a board member of the European Investment Bank. He was head of the budget and resource allocation team of the SIGMA Programme and is now adviser on governance at the Asian Development Bank.
Daniel Tommasi is a Paris-based consultant in the the areas of fiscal policy, public expenditure management and macroeconomic management. He is an adviser to governments and a consultant for international organisations, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the European Union's Phare and Tacis Programmes. He has worked for over 25 years in some 30 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific and Africa.
Trade in counterfeit and pirated goods is a vital threat for modern, innovation-driven economies, a worldwide phenomenon that grows in scope and magnitude. Counterfeiters ship infringing products via complex routes, with many intermediary points, which poses a substantial challenge to efficient enforcement. This study looks at the issue of the complex routes of trade in counterfeit pirated goods. Using a set of statistical filters, it identifies key producing economies and key transit points. The analysis is done for ten main sectors for which counterfeiting is the key threat. The results will facilitate tailoring policy responses to strengthen governance frameworks to tackle this risk, depending on the profile of a given economy that is known as a source of counterfeit goods in international trade.
Intense exploitation of our oceans and seas is degrading marine biodiversity and ecosystems at an alarming rate. This report presents good practice insights for effectively managing marine protected areas (MPAs), one of the policy instruments available for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity and ecosystems. While global coverage of MPAs has been increasing over the past two decades, further efforts are required to meet the target under the Sustainable Development Goals and to ensure they are effective.
Drawing on the literature and numerous examples from developed and developing countries, this book highlights how the environmental and cost effectiveness of MPAs can be enhanced. It covers issues including the benefits and costs of MPAs, the need for more strategic siting of MPAs, monitoring and compliance, sustainable finance for MPAs, and the need to embed these in a wider policy mix so as to address the multiple pressures on marine ecosystems.
This report summarises the results of the joint project of the Greek Ministry of Administrative Reform and e-Government and the OECD on measuring and reducing administrative burdens in 13 key sectors of the Greek economy.
When trying to measure fiscal decentralisation, the OECD Network on Fiscal Relations Across Government Levels has made significant progress in the last years, especially on tax autonomy of sub-central governments. But in many respects, real-world fiscal decentralisation still escapes the measuring tools, especially when it comes to measure the spending power of sub-central governments or the various regulations attached to intergovernmental grants. This book deals with two interrelated issues. The first concerns the various measurement of fiscal decentralization in general and their usefulness for policy analysis. The second and more specific issue concerns the taxonomy of intergovernmental grants and the limits of the current classifications, and how policy changes to the intergovernmental grants framework may require that measurement devices be adapted.