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La crisis sanitaria y económica sin precedentes a la que se enfrentan los países en desarrollo agravará los problemas de desarrollo existentes. Aunque los gobiernos han empezado a responder, su capacidad es muy limitada. Los gobiernos de la OCDE y la comunidad internacional en general necesitan desbloquear un apoyo ambicioso, para evitar la pérdida de vidas, contener el riesgo de repercusiones e invertir en una recuperación sostenible. La respuesta internacional al COVID-19 debería no tener precedentes en términos de recursos movilizados, alcance y ambición. Esto debería conducir a un nuevo modelo de desarrollo que favorezca la resiliencia y la sostenibilidad.

As school after school shuts down in the face of the Covid-19 crisis (in now more than 140 countries), online learning opportunities have been elevated from a bonus extracurricular facility to a critical lifeline for education.

Os riscos de segurança digital estão aumentando ao passo que atores mal-intencionados se aproveitam da epidemia do coronavírus (COVID-19). Indivíduos e empresas devem exercer cautela com comunicações relacionadas ao coronavírus e usar medidas apropriadas de "higiene" em relação à segurança digital. É essencial que os que os governos ampliem esforços de conscientização, monitorem o cenário de ameaças e publiquem diretrizes de fácil acesso para a higiene de segurança digital, em particular para grupos vulneráveis, como idosos e pequenas e médias empresas (PMEs).

The Paris Agreement invites signatory countries to formulate and communicate long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies (LT-LEDS). This report compares the experience of three developed countries that have communicated LT-LEDS within the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): France (Stratégie National Bas-Carbone), Germany (Klimaschutzplan 2050) and the United Kingdom (Clean Growth Strategy). The report analyses the three stages of the LT-LEDS process in detail: a) the institutional and technical process to create the LT-LEDS; b) the document strategy resulting from the process; and c) the design of specific mechanisms to facilitate implementation of the LT-LEDS. While LT-LEDS will reflect countries own "common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances", it is hoped that the lessons and messages included in this report can be useful to other developed and developing countries interested in creating and implementing LT-LEDS.

This paper provides new evidence on the main characteristics of laggard firms - firms in the bottom 40% of the productivity distribution - and their potential for productivity growth. It finds that laggards are on average younger and smaller than more productive firms, and matter for aggregate resource reallocation. Moreover, younger laggards converge faster toward the productivity frontier, suggesting that the composition of the laggard group matters for future productivity. Yet this report finds that laggards converge at a slower rate in highly digital- and skill-intensive industries, suggesting that there are barriers to technology and knowledge diffusion. This could help explain the much-debated productivity slowdown and the increased productivity dispersion. This report also finds that policies aimed at improving workers’ skills, alleviating financial constraints to investments and increasing firms' absorptive capacity through direct R&D support can accelerate the diffusion of knowledge and technology, and help laggard firms to catch up.

This paper discusses the main barriers and possible solutions to the decarbonisation of steel and cement industries. First, the paper details the economic, regulatory, technological and political economy barriers that impede a low carbon transition. Then, it addresses the role of material efficiency and enhanced recycling in greening these industries, and reviews the emerging and near commercial low- and zero- emissions production technologies. Finally, the policy packages that could contribute to trigger demand and supply decarbonisation of steel and cement are discussed.

This literature review examines the research on early childhood education and care (ECEC) leadership and how leaders impact process quality in ECEC settings. Process quality refers to interactions and relationships between and among children and ECEC staff, and is a strong predictor of children’s learning, development and well-being. Research suggests that leadership plays a central role in improving and sustaining process quality in ECEC settings. This literature review presents findings about: 1) the functions, roles and structures of leadership in ECEC settings, 2) factors that may support or hinder leadership and its effectiveness, 3) working conditions and professional development for staff, and 4) how these factors might impact process quality. The results suggest that supports for ECEC leadership may be needed to strengthen areas such as leadership recruitment, preparation and professional development, credentialing and compensation, job design and further research.

Following the 2013 French military intervention in Mali, significant attention has been paid to issues of security and development in the Sahel. The stability of Sahelian countries and the capacity of their governments to manage social change and resulting tensions have major security implications for migration flows, economic development, and health concerns both for local people and for the broader international community. The rise of violent religious extremism in the region and the varied efforts to curtail its spread have raised international alarm and prompted important resources to be invested by both domestic governments and foreign partners. This paper offers a broad overview of the current situation in the Sahel paying attention to the intersecting and overlapping issues of security and development. The paper then interrogates three central themes—poverty, migration, and conflict—adopting a historical perspective to examine long-term trends in the region. In doing so, it aims to contribute to contemporary policy discussions by offering evidence of how these dynamics have either changed or persisted across this centrally important region during the last several decades.

This report examines the local entrepreneurship ecosystem of the Mazowieckie region in Poland and its capacity to promote productivity upgrading and industrial renewal. It forms part of the OECD’s work stream on local entrepreneurship ecosystems and emerging industries.

This case study examines the Pomorskie local entrepreneurship ecosystem and regional smart specialisation approach. It identifies bottlenecks and enablers in the local entrepreneurship ecosystem and makes policy recommendations on how to further strengthen local entrepreneurship and industrial renewal. The case study offers a number of policy suggestions and models for Pomorskie and for other regions interested in promoting entrepreneurship and emerging industries.

Este documento de trabajo resume los principales hallazgos y recomendaciones del estudio piloto realizado en Costa Rica como parte del desarrollo del marco de medición del apoyo oficial total al desarrollo sostenible (TOSSD). El documento incluye los flujos estimados de TOSSD a Costa Rica. Estos flujos en 2016 fueron de 559 millones de dólares estadounidenses de financiamiento oficial para el desarrollo y 60 millones de dólares de financiación privada movilizada a través de intervenciones oficiales de desarrollo. Estos flujos se calcularon a partir de las estadísticas CAD de la OCDE. Sin embargo, es probable que las cifras estén subestimadas en gran medida debido a la falta de información disponible, en particular con respecto al apoyo oficial a Costa Rica por parte China y otros países proveedores que no pertenecen al CAD. El estudio piloto también indicó que el gobierno puede acceder, recopilar, analizar y usar datos sobre financiamiento externo para el país utilizando datos nacionales gracias a sus sistemas institucionales y de tecnologías de la información. Sin embargo, el marco legislativo requiere ajustes y puede mejorarse la coordinación con el fin de evitar la duplicación de esfuerzos.

This report investigates the gender gap in the funding of innovative start-ups across OECD and BRICS countries using a detailed micro-dataset on start-ups and their founders. Results from empirical analysis show that start-ups with at least one woman in the team of founders are less likely to receive funding by 5-10%. When such start-ups do receive funding, they receive an amount lower by a third compared to start-ups created by male founders. Accounting for founders’ characteristics (their educational background and past professional experience) reduces the gap in likelihood to receive funding, but not the gap in funding amounts. A key conclusion is that addressing the gender gap will require a holistic approach, including through – but not restricted to – the education system. The paper concludes by a discussion of potential mechanisms that could explain the observed gap, presents policy options, and proposes an agenda for future research.

A decomposition of changes to participation rates of 55-to-74 year-olds between 2002 and 2017 based on an estimated equation attributes more than two thirds of the median increase (of 10.9 percentage points) to rising life expectancy and educational attainment. About 1 percentage point is attributable to changes in statutory retirement ages, although part of the reason these effects are not larger is that in most countries, statutory retirement ages have not kept pace with life expectancy. Although difficult to incorporate in the empirical framework, evidence of falling disability pension rolls and reduced sensitivity of old-age participation to the level of unemployment suggests that the tightening of alternative early retirement pathways through unemployment or disability schemes has been a major factor in the turnaround in the participation rate of older workers. Projections indicate that participation rates for 55-to-74 year-olds should keep rising through 2030, by 3.4 percentage points for the median country. Rising life expectancy and educational attainment are projected to make the largest contributions, more than compensating for the negative contribution of population ageing in most countries.

This paper uses a novel empirical approach to assess if the development of online platforms affects the productivity of service firms. We build a proxy measure of platform use across four industries (hotels, restaurants, taxis and retail trade) and ten OECD countries using internet search data from Google Trends, which we link to firm-level data on productivity in these industries. We find that platform development supports the productivity of the average incumbent service firm and also stimulates labour reallocation towards more productive firms in these industries. This may notably reflect that platforms’ user review and rating systems reduce information asymmetries between consumers and service providers, enhancing competition between providers. The effects depend on platform type. “Aggregator” platforms that connect incumbent service providers to consumers tend to push up the productivity of incumbents, while more disruptive platforms that enable new types of providers to compete with them (e.g. home sharing, ride hailing) have on average no significant effect on it. Consistent with this, we find that different platform types affect differently the profits, mark-ups, employment and wages of incumbent service firms. Finally, the productivity gains from platforms are lower when a platform is persistently dominant on its market, suggesting that the contestability of platform markets should be promoted.

This report examines the local entrepreneurship ecosystem of the Coventry and Warwickshire region in the United Kingdom and its capacity to promote productivity upgrading and industrial renewal. It forms part of the OECD’s work stream on local entrepreneurship ecosystems and emerging industries. This work examines how policy at the local level can promote innovative start-ups, innovative scale-ups and innovation in existing enterprises for entrepreneurship and industrial diversification.

This report examines the local entrepreneurship ecosystem of the Malopolskie region in Poland and its capacity to promote productivity upgrading and industrial renewal. It forms part of the OECD’s work stream on local entrepreneurship ecosystems and emerging industries.

This study quantifies the significant economic gains that are expected to be revealed through the abolition or relaxation of local content based policies. The work analyses two specific local content policies affecting directly or indirectly the shipbuilding industry in two countries: Brazil’s local content requirement as part of national concession contracts in the oil and gas sector, and the long-standing US Jones Act obliging intra-US seaborne trade to be conducted on US built and US flagged vessels. The paper’s static simulation exploits OECD’s latest Trade-in-Value-Added (TiVA) data – a rich database on Inter-Country Input-Output relationships. The database has been disaggregated to the level of the shipbuilding industry, enabling an assessment of the effect of the two selected policies on inter-industry trade. The simulation results suggest large economic benefits for both countries in the long-term despite initial losses in the target industry.