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Humanitarian aid is a significant and growing dimension of Official Development Assistance (ODA). Meeting humanitarian needs caused by natural disasters or armed conflicts poses serious challenges for donors financing humanitarian action. Reforms to improve effectiveness and efficiency of humanitarian action are underway. The Principles and Good Practice of Humanitarian Donorship (GHD), endorsed in 2003 by 16 DAC governments and the European Commission, provides an opportunity for harmonising donor practice in this field. The DAC has agreed to take an active role in promoting GHD and since 2004, a GHD assessment framework has been applied in six Peer Reviews (Australia, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland). This document summarises the findings and experience with the aim of assessing the usefulness of this approach.

This policy brief is part of a series of thematic policy briefs prepared as part of the OECD's Resourcing Higher Education Project. It examines the frameworks that govern the employment of academic staff in publicly funded higher education institutions in Israel. It compares these frameworks to those in place in comparable OECD higher education systems and draws on these comparisons, along with insights from discussions with higher education experts in Israel, to identify policy options for enhancing human resources policy in Israel’s public higher education system.

This article synthesises a selected literature on human capital formation and foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries. The aim is to take a bird’s eye view of the complex linkages between the activities of multinational enterprises (MNEs) and policies of host developing countries. In doing so, general trends, best practices and policy experiences are extracted to evaluate the current state of knowledge. The literature indicates that a high level of human capital is no doubt one of the key ingredients for attracting FDI, as well as for host countries to gain maximum benefits from their activities. Most developing countries, however, underinvest in human capital, and the investment that is actually taking place is unevenly distributed across countries and regions that have adopted different human resource development (HRD) policies. To improve human capital formation and thus to attract more FDI would therefore require a more coherent approach that takes host country constraints such as limited budgetary resources into account. One such approach is to provide strong incentives for MNEs and Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) to participate in formal education and vocational training even for workers employed by domestic firms. This allows HRD to be flexible and demanddriven. Another policy option is to facilitate human resource development (HRD) for small and medium-sized domestic enterprises which usually do not invest sufficiently in training of employees although these enterprises stand to gain most from education and training. In addition, FDI promotion policies can target high value-added MNEs that are more likely to bring new skills and knowledge to the economy that can be tapped by domestic enterprises. Lastly, it is important that key components of HRD policies, i.e. formal schooling and vocational education and training policies (post-formal schooling), are well coordinated so as to equip students with knowledge and skills that will later be complementary to training opportunities provided in the labour market.

Metagora’s pilot experience on land reform in South Africa is a case study for measuring the realisation of democracy and human rights in a complex practical context. This pilot designed and tested a survey methodology to take into account the varied nature of the South African land question, as well as the relevant but diverging views of a range of stakeholders. It addressed the particular needs of policy makers and civil society for evidence-based information on citizens’ differing experiences, perceptions, attitudes and aspirations around land.The likely policy impact of this approach was to contribute with evidence-based information and analysis to the development of a land reform policy based on principles, standards and people’s expectations of democracy, realisation of human rights and good governance.

This technical opinion paper represents the consensus of risk analysts in NEA member countries on the current state of the art of human reliability analysis (HRA) in probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) for nuclear power plants. The paper's objective is to present decision makers in the nuclear field with a clear technical opinion on HRA status as implemented in industrial PSAs. The intended audience is primarily nuclear safety regulators, senior researchers and industry leaders. Government authorities, nuclear power plant operators and the general public may also be interested.

This article provides an overview of the current use of biotechnology to produce human health products and short-term estimates of the number and types of these products that are likely to reach the market by 2015. Relevant health products include biopharmaceuticals, experimental therapies (e.g. cell/tissue engineering and gene therapy), small molecule therapeutics, diagnostics, bioinformatics (including DNA sequencing and pharmacogenetics), functional food and nutraceuticals, and medical devices. The analysis of current use is based on regulatory approval data and the current literature and includes a comparison of the additional therapeutic value of biopharmaceuticals compared to small molecule pharmaceuticals. The short-term estimates of the number and types of products that are likely to reach the market by 2015 are based, where possible, on an analysis of quantitative data on clinical trials. For several other products, including functional foods and nutraceuticals, it is not possible to make short-term estimates due to a lack of reliable data. While the biopharmaceutical share of all pharmaceuticals reaching the market is expected to remain very close to historical levels, biotechnology is expected to be used in the discovery, development, manufacturing, and/or prescribing of nearly all new drugs by 2015. In addition, the use of biotech based diagnostics (especially genetic testing), bioinformatics, and pharmacogenetics is likely to increase. In some cases, these technologies will be used to improve the safety and efficacy of clinical trials, to personalise prescribing practises, and to reduce adverse drug reactions.

This paper provides an overview of the social-psychological factors that are likely to influence the trust and acceptance of shared SAE Level 4 Automated Vehicles (AVs). It begins with a short summary of what influences users’ engagement in ride-sharing for conventional vehicles, followed by the factors that affect user acceptance and trust of robotic systems. Using studies of human robot interaction (HRI), recommendations are made on how to improve users’ trust, acceptance and use of shared AVs. Results from real-world studies and on-line surveys provide some contradictory views regarding willingness to accept and use the systems, which may be partly due to the fact that on-line users have not had actual interactions with AVs. We recommend that the pathway to adoption and acceptance of AVs should be incremental and iterative, providing users with hands-on experience of the systems at every stage. This removes unrealistic, idealised, expectations, which can ultimately hamper acceptance. Manufacturers may also use new technologies, social-networks and crowd-sourcing techniques to receive feedback and input from consumers themselves, in order to increase adoption and acceptance of shared AVs.

This paper presents the first international assessment of the Lightcast vacancy data representativeness based on benchmarking against officially reported vacancy data in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. The analysis compares distributions in the Lightcast data versus official data across large (TL2) regions, industrial sectors and occupational categories. The analysis shows differences in representativeness across countries and on the three dimensions considered. In general, regional representativeness is considerably better than both occupational and sectoral representativeness.