Browse by: "D"

Water security is a matter of great national importance for Kazakhstan, with its Security Council meeting on 26 June 2019 devoted to “Ensuring Water Security”. This paper presents recent progress in Kazakhstan with regard to identifying water security priorities and establishing indicators to monitor and measure progress towards achieving water security. The paper also analyses those water security indicators that simultaneously relate to the “nationalised” Green Growth Indicators (GGIs) and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators that are relevant to water security, and also identifies opportunities for complimentary indicators to be developed to track the full suite of water security targets. The paper identifies remaining challenges for future work in this domain, including improving data collection and reporting; and integrating water security indicators into relevant policy documents, strategies and plans to secure the technical and political attention necessary to drive progress in this domain.

Government support for agricultural risk management tools has grown substantially over the past two decades. While these tools can play a role in strengthening farm-level resilience by helping farmers to cope with the financial impact of adverse events, they also modify farmers’ incentives to invest in risk-reducing measures and market tools. Policy design is critical to maximise effectiveness while minimising unintended consequences. This report reviews the accumulated experience on four types of publicly-supported agricultural risk management tools (ex post disaster aid, agricultural insurance, income stabilisation schemes and tax and savings measures). It suggests some basic principles on how countries can improve the design of their agricultural risk management policies, using a holistic approach and focusing on market failures. The report also highlights the need for more transparency on basic programme data, and for periodic public evaluation of existing programmes.

This report presents new evidence about occupations requiring artificial intelligence (AI)-related competencies, based on online job posting data and previous work on identifying and measuring developments in AI. It finds that the total number of AI-related jobs increased over time in the four countries considered – Canada, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States – and that a growing number of jobs require multiple AI-related skills. Skills related to communication, problem solving, creativity and teamwork gained relative importance over time, as did complementary software-related and AI-specific competencies. As expected, many AI-related jobs are posted in categories such as “professionals” and “technicians and associated professionals”, though AI-related skills are in demand, to varying degrees, across almost all sectors of the economy. In all countries considered, the sectors “Information and Communication”, “Financial and Insurance Activities” and “Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities” are the most AI job-intensive.

Countries are increasingly using digital technologies within their Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) systems and the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are accelerating this evolution. While countries are increasing their use of digital tools, digital technologies still have significant potential to create efficiencies in SPS systems and enhance agro-food trade. Quantitative analysis using structural gravity model estimates show that digital technologies such as SPS electronic certificates have positive effects on trade volumes, notably for plant-based, vegetables and processed food products. Despite these gains, significant challenges remain in expanding the use of digital technologies in agro-food trade, including mixed capacities to adopt these technologies. Successful expansion of the use of digital technologies requires careful planning and long-term investments, as well as sharing expertise and building trust in these tools. Targeted financial assistance and capacity building can provide support to countries currently lacking the capabilities to adopt these tools.

This paper reviews opportunities and challenges for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from Morocco’s transport sector. It provides an overview of the transport system and reviews the country’s existing policies and future plans for reducing CO2 emissions from transport. The paper also provides an overview of the data on transport activity and emissions available for Morocco, and the tools used by government agencies for assessing them. Finally, it proposes options for further action in the context of ITF’s “Decarbonising Transport in Emerging Economies” (DTEE) project

In recent years, more attention has been paid to the way gender interacts with intercultural and global learning opportunities. While evidence shows that schools are shaping a gendered citizenry, the notions of citizenship in this research has been notably local with limited focus on global conceptions of citizenship. PISA 2018 asked students a series of questions about their global and intercultural attitudes and dispositions. Those questions focused on the four dimensions of global competence: students’ ability to examine local and global issues, their capacity to understand and appreciate the perspectives of others, their ability to engage in effective communication across cultures, and their willingness to take action for collective well-being and sustainable development. Findings show some important gender differences discussed in this paper.

This report presents an analysis of current transport activity in India and reviews key policy instruments set up by Indian institutions to shape transport developments in the coming years. It also investigates future scenarios of transport in India and outlines key aspects that should be considered in the upcoming work on transport decarbonisation. The final section builds on these insights, charting a way forward for a climate change mitigation strategy for the Indian transport sector. In particular, it underlines the importance of taking an approach that is not limited to direct GHG emission reductions but takes into account a lifecycle perspective.

This paper reviews opportunities and challenges for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from Azerbaijan’s transport sector. It provides an overview of Azerbaijan’s transport system and reviews the country’s existing policies and future plans for reducing CO2 emissions from transport. The paper also provides an overview of the data on transport activity and emissions available for Azerbaijan, and the tools used by government agencies for assessing them. Finally, it proposes options for further action in the context of ITF’s “Decarbonising Transport in Emerging Economies” (DTEE) project.

This report highlights a complex situation in which some forms of data localisation are seen as useful and largely uncontroversial, while others as a significant barrier to the digital economy. Contributing to the review of the implementation of the OECD Privacy Guidelines, the report emphasises the need to recognise the effect that data localisation can have on transborder data flows, but suggests that the conditions that data privacy laws traditionally impose do not necessarily amount to data localisation measures. Focusing on data localisation in the context of data privacy and the governance of globalised data flows, the report proposes a definition for data localisation, outlines a roadmap to ensure that data localisation does not impede transborder data flows, and makes recommendations to support such work. In particular, it emphasises the relevance of the accountability principle and the proportionality test articulated in the OECD Privacy Guidelines in evaluating data localisation measures.

With a newly constructed firm-level dataset combining various survey- and registry data from Statistics Estonia, this paper sheds new light on the labour productivity premium from adopting digital technologies and boosting digital skill use. The productivity premium is decomposed into a direct effect benefitting the firms actually increasing their digital intensity, and an indirect effect of belonging to a sector with high digital intensity. The firm-level productivity premium of being an adopting firm is consistently positive and sizeable across different digital technologies and measures of skill intensity. The evidence also suggests positive spill-over effects in manufacturing sectors and sectors with a high routine task content and thus a high automation potential.

Kazakhstan has made tremendous progress in ensuring universal access to primary and lower-secondary education. Nevertheless, results international surveys reveal that almost two-thirds of students from Kazakhstan complete schooling without mastering the basic skills needed to be successful, and that student achievement is increasingly inequitable.

This policy perspective provides Kazakhstan with recommendations about how to strengthen its school evaluation system in order to improve the learning outcomes of all students. It is part of a larger OECD review of Kazakhstan that is published as four policy perspectives, each examining a key policy issue

The development of transit-oriented communities (TOC) is a central element in the promotion of accessibility in the Metro Vancouver Region (MVR). The entity is building on its wealth of experience in public transport development in the region, which has contributed to its high levels of well-being and economic progress. TOC aims to incentivise people to drive less and walk, cycle and take transit more. A solid culture of community engagement, the existence of a coordinating body for transport planning, and the links between transport and land-use policy are the main assets MVR has to enhance accessibility. However, tackling the affordable housing deficit around transport hubs remains a challenge for local authorities. The purpose of this paper is to draw lessons from the MVR’s experience in transit-oriented initiatives to contribute to the development of compact, connected and green urban centres.

This paper addresses the problem of involuntary social exclusion resulting from mobility constraints by proposing a conceptual model for the interaction between transport and wellbeing. Providing accessibility for all yields widely shared benefits that are largely overlooked by traditional appraisal methods. While some see the ultimate aim of transport policy as increasing wellbeing, an agreed model of how these two interact does not currently exist.