Browse by: "2013"

Korea is confronting a serious challenges. It has to improve income equality in the context of a severe demographic transition. Such a transition, from one of the youngest populations in the OECD at present to the second oldest by 2050, may boost the need for public spending and slow economic growth. In this context and as the pace of population ageing is accelerating, it is important to act quickly in a wide range of areas:
-Policies to sustain Korea’s growth potential in the face of falling labour inputs;
-Measures that improve both growth and equality;
-Carefully-targeted increases in social spending to reduce inequality and poverty;
-Financing higher social spending, with priority given to a reform of tax and social security that minimises the negative impact on output growth.

Against the background of these broad challenges, which are discussed in a specific, setting-the-ground, Chapter, the report suggests policy options, based on the practices and reforms of other countries, in the following four areas: I) Income Distribution and Poverty; II) Tackling the Duality of the Labour Market; III) Early Childcare; and IV) Moving beyond Hospitals to better Care in the Community.

Health data constitutes a significant resource in most OECD countries that could be used to improve population health, the quality of health care and the performance of health systems. Rising levels of chronic diseases; concerns about the quality and safety of patient care; the need to assure value for investments in health care; and the need to allocate health resources wisely; are all too important to be left without good evidence for decision making.

This book, based on studies of 19 countries on the development and use of personal health data and of 25 countries on development and use of electronic health record systems, includes results showing good practices, new opportunities and data privacy protection challenges. It finds that well-intended policies to allay concerns about breaches of confidentiality and potential misuse of personal health data may be limiting data use, but that the next five years appear promising, in terms of both the number of countries that plan to implement national electronic health record systems and the number that consider it likely that data from these systems will be used for some aspects of health care quality monitoring. They also appear promising for the further use of existing personal health databases and for the linkage of multiple data sources to generate new evidence.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are an important feature of the economic landscape in the Middle East and North Africa region and yet, their contribution to the local economies has not been subject to a systematic investigation. SOEs in the region are generally perceived as inefficient and subject to sub-optimal governance arrangements but at the same time, and somewhat paradoxically, they are often charged developmental mandates that typically go beyond their stated commercial objectives. This phenomenon owes to the historically prominent role of the state in the economic development in the region and the recently renewed interest in using select SOEs as anchors of national industrialisation and competitiveness strategies.

This publication contributes to the limited existing literature on the role of SOEs in the economic development by examining the contribution of MENA SOEs to industrial development, diversification, poverty elimination and the provision of goods and services to the public more generally. Second, it provides an overview of the diverse mandates and roles of MENA SOEs and assesses the costs of these obligations with a view to isolate ownership and governance practices that have contributed to the success of some companies and poor performance of others. Recommendations to policymakers as well as management and boards of SOEs are made based on these observations at the end of the publication.

This report provides a comparative overview of common standards and key features of specialised anti-corruption institutions and comprehensive descriptions of 19 anti-corruption institutions operating in different parts of the world, presented in a comparable framework. This new edition of an 2008 report reflects the evolving understanding of international standards and the practice and the most recent experiences of anti-corruption institutions. The report discusses three "models" of anti-corruption institutions: multi-functional anti-corruption agencies, institutions fighting corruption through law enforcement and prevention institutions.  

Encouraged by international conventions and success of some specialised anti-corruption institutions in earlier times, such as the Hong Kong’s anti-corruption commission, many countries around the world, including those in Eastern Europe, have created new specialised institutions to prevent and combat corruption over the past decade. Establishing such bodies was often seen as the only way to reduce widespread corruption, as existing institutions were considered too weak for the task, or were considered to be part of the corruption-problem. The report highlights that while many of these new anti-corruption agencies have shown good results, they cannot fight corruption alone. Other public institutions, including various specialised integrity and control bodies, and internal units in various public institutions should play a role in preventing and detecting corruption in different sectors of public administration.

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.

The report discusses the results of the OECD “Leveraging Training and Skills Development in SMEs” (TSME) project which examines access to training by SMEs across seven regions in six OECD countries: New Zealand, Poland, Belgium, UK, Turkey and Canada. The book analyses the policy issues related to both low access by SMEs, and how to recognise the increasing importance of informal training and skills development methods. The book looks at how both formal and alternative ways of training and skills development interact and identifies impacts at three levels; for the firm and employees; for the industry; and for the local area where the firm is located.

The report pays special attention to the development of entrepreneurial skills and the emerging area of “green skills”. This focus is not just because ‘green skills’ represent the next new training opportunity – the de-carbonisation of economies that will occur over the coming decades represents an industrial transformation on the scale of the microelectronics revolution - but in many ways the response to the green economy is at an emerging stage- this means we have the opportunity to implement lessons from previous successful practices into a skill development area that will have enormous reach.

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 Colombia, the beginning of a new century has brought with it a palpable feeling of optimism. Colombians and visitors sense that the country’s considerable potential can be realised, and education is rightly seen as crucial to this process. As opportunities expand, Colombians will need new and better skills to respond to new challenges and prospects.

The government is therefore determined to address key challenges confronting tertiary education in the country: expanding enrolment and improving equity, increasing quality and relevance, and making governance and finance more responsive. Colombia has more than a decade of progress under its belt, and the energy to reach ambitious policy goals. Getting there in practice will involve dialogue and consensus-seeking among all stakeholders, as well as new resources and new rules.

Growth and diversity have characterised higher education in OECD countries for fifty years. Chile is no exception and has experienced dramatic increases in the number of students, the range of institutions and the programmes that they offer. But wider participation and diversification are only part of the story. Chilean society remains highly unequal in economic and social terms, and the quality of the academic, technical and professional programmes on offer is uneven. The establishment of a culture of quality in higher education which goes beyond accreditation, and the provision of accurate and reliable information, have become issues of concern not only to institutions, students and employers but to a wider public.

This report  analyses the performance of the relatively young higher education quality assurance system (SINAC-ES). It provides a set of key principles that the OECD review team believes both reflect international practice and are relevant for Chile. The report makes a set of recommendations about the place of the SINAC ES in Chilean higher education and society; the focus of its work; its structure and leadership; and the functions of licensing; accreditation and information that it carries out.