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Cancer causes almost a quarter of all deaths in the EU27, Norway and Iceland, with five new cancer cases diagnosed every minute in 2022. Assessing and improving cancer care from prevention to treatment is essential for promoting longer, healthier lives. This report addresses the latest trends in cancer incidence and mortality in the EU and reviews key cancer risk factors, cancer screening programmes and early diagnoses, and issues in the provision of high-quality cancer care. Country performance, cross-cutting challenges and new developments are examined with a particular focus on disparities by regions, socio-economic status and gender. The report provides policy makers with fiscal, regulatory and health systems organisation tools, as well as examples of initiatives that can be undertaken in primary care, workplaces, and schools to better control cancer and counter inequalities.
Behavioural insights (BI) has become widely used by public bodies around the world, mostly towards improving the way policies are implemented and influencing individual behaviour. As the field of BI evolves to tackle more complex policy issues, there is widespread perception that BI can and should go beyond the study of individual-level decision processes for higher impact. This report presents research on applying BI to changing the behaviour of organisations, with a focus on fostering elements of a safety culture in the energy sector. It presents comparative findings from experiments with energy regulators in Canada, Ireland, Mexico and Oman, as well as guidance for applying BI to safety culture going forward.
“Behavioural insights”, or insights derived from the behavioural and social sciences, including decision making, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, organisational and group behaviour, are being applied by governments with the aim of making public policies work better. As their use has become more widespread, however, questions are being raised about their effectiveness as well as their philosophical underpinnings. This report discusses the use and reach of behavioural insights, drawing on a comprehensive collection of over 100 applications across the world and policy sectors, including consumer protection, education, energy, environment, finance, health and safety, labour market policies, public service delivery, taxes and telecommunications. It suggests ways to ensure that this experimental approach can be successfully and sustainably used as a public policy tool.
At the core of integrity is a human choice. Behavioural research reveals two determinants of integrity: the internal dynamics of how individuals make moral decisions and how these decisions are shaped and influenced by other people. This report describes how behavioural insights can help make integrity and anti-corruption policies more effective and efficient. It includes concrete policy applications and provides guidance for policy makers on how to use behavioural insights in designing integrity and anti-corruption policies.
Prepared against this background, the OECD report Behind the Corporate Veil: Using Corporate Entities for Illicit Purposes opens ways to prevent and combat the misuse of corporate entities. The report shows that the types of corporate entities misused most frequently are those that provide the greatest degree of anonymity to their beneficial owners. With that in mind, the report offers governments and other relevant authorities a menu of policy options for obtaining information on the beneficial ownership and control of corporate entities in order to combat their misuse for illicit purposes.
Regulators operate in a complex environment at the interface among public authorities, the private sector and end-users. As “referees” of the markets that provide water, energy, transport, communications, and financial services to citizens, they must balance competing wants and needs from different actors. This means that they must behave and act objectively, impartially, and consistently, without conflict of interest, bias or undue influence - in other words, independently. What distinguishes an independent regulator is not simply institutional design. Independence is also about finding the right balance between the appropriate and undue influence that can be exercised through the regulators’ daily interactions with ministries, regulated industries and end-users. This report identifies the critical points where undue influence can be exercised at different moments in the life of a regulator and discusses some of the avenues for developing a culture of independence, including through interactions with stakeholders, staffing and financing.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) regularly conducts in-depth peer reviews of the energy policies of its member countries. This process supports energy policy development and encourages the exchange of international best practices and experiences to help drive secure, affordable and clean energy transitions.Belgium’s energy and climate policies push for energy transition through expanding renewable electricity generation and electrifying energy demand, especially for transport. Policies focus on maintaining affordable access to energy with the double aim of protecting vulnerable consumers and ensuring industrial competitiveness. Belgium has made notable progress on deploying offshore wind and increasing the share of electric vehicles. However, fossil fuels still dominate the country’s energy mix, a dependence that is expected to increase. All sectors have considerable work ahead of them to meet Belgium’s targets for increasing the share of renewables, lowering energy demand and reducing emissions.The IEA provides a range of energy policy recommendations in this report to help Belgium smoothly manage the transition to an efficient and flexible carbon-neutral energy system.
This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in Belgium as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system.
This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.
This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in Belgium as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system. This edition has a special focus on the impact of COVID‑19.
This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.
This profile provides a concise and policy-focused overview of the state of health and the healthcare system in Belgium, as a part of the broader series of Country Health Profiles from the State of Health in the EU initiative. It presents a succinct analysis encompassing the following key aspects: the current health status in Belgium; the determinants of health, focusing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the Belgian healthcare system; and an evaluation of the health system's effectiveness, accessibility, and resilience. Moreover, the 2023 edition presents a thematic section on the state of mental health and associated services in Belgium.
This profile is the collaborative effort of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, carried out in cooperation with the European Commission.
Understanding the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is important for safe and timely decommissioning of the reactors. This objective, together with the development of better computer codes for analysis of severe accidents, was the aim of the benchmark study conducted under the auspices of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency. Through the diversity of the modelling codes and approaches, and the use of parametric studies, it has been possible to identify the more likely scenarios that can fit with the limited data available from the accident. The insights gained from the project will help guide research into severe accident behaviour, improve severe accident computer codes, develop accident mitigation and response at nuclear power plants, support regulatory oversight related to severe accidents, and inform policies on the development and deployment of nuclear technology.
The radiation dose rate emitted by spent fuel assemblies is a crucial parameter within the framework of proliferation resistance, and its accurate determination is hence of paramount importance. Recent calculations have shown some discrepancies with historical results for pressurised water reactor spent fuel assemblies. To verify these discrepancies and help define a reference calculation, an international benchmark was carried out under the framework of the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Expert Group on Advanced Fuel Cycle Scenarios (EGAFCS). The benchmark aimed to verify updated dose rate calculation procedures (new modelling approaches, new nuclear data, new versions of calculation codes) and share the benchmark results at the international level. The benchmark, including code-to-code verification and validation against experimental data, has shown and validated a methodology for the adequate estimation of the radiation dose rate from pressurised water reactor spent fuel assemblies (UOX and MOX) after certain periods of decay, confirming also the self-resistance of the simulated assemblies. This report outlines the exercise, its results and a series of recommendations for calculations.
Civil service modernisation is a key priority in Kazakhstan. This report uses the OECD's Survey on Strategic Human Resource Management (HRM) in central governments to examine how Kazakhstan’s practices compare against OECD countries in several strategic areas. It explores how Kazakhstan is looking at skills and competencies throughout the employment cycle; how performance and pay systems contribute to improving public service quality, accessibility and responsiveness; and the role leaders and managers play in the reform implementation process. The report suggests areas for further improvement to help Kazakhstan develop a professional, strategic and innovative civil service.
This report benchmarks digital government strategies in MENA countries against OECD standards and best practices. Using the OECD Recommendation of the Council on Digital Government Strategies as analytical framework, the report provides an in-depth look at the efforts made by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates to use digital technologies strategically to support broader policy objectives. New technologies can help foster economic value creation, make institutions more inclusive, improve competitiveness and promote effective decision-making in the public sector. This report also assesses the use of ICTs to strengthen trust in government through greater openness and engagement, and suggests how MENA countries can better co-ordinate and steer the digital transformation of the public sector.
The scope of contemporary higher education is wide, and concerns about the performance of higher education systems are widespread. The number of young people with a higher education qualification is expected to surpass 300 million in OECD and G20 countries by 2030. Higher education systems are faced with challenges that include expanding access, containing costs, and ensuring the quality and relevance of provision. The project on benchmarking higher education system performance provides a comprehensive and empirically rich review of the higher education landscape across OECD countries, taking stock of how well they are performing in meeting their education, research and engagement responsibilities.
Stronger interactions between science and industry underpin growth in a knowledge economy. A comparison of the intensity and quality of industry-science relationships (ISR) in OECD countries shows that many countries are lagging behind in mobilising science for innovation. The report benchmarks OECD countries’ ISR, identifies relevant good practices in managing the interface between public research and the business sector, and provides a framework for monitoring and assessing evolving policies in the area.
The report presents an in-depth comparative study of ISR in France and the United Kingdom and a special chapter on Japan.
What is efficient intermodal freight transport? How are "best practices" to be found? What measures are being developed in OECD countries for assessing the relative efficiency of modes and modal combinations? What opportunities exist to improve complex intermodal transport chains? How are such opportunities identified and assessed? Today’s highly competitive global market calls for intermodal transport systems that meet industry’s expectations in efficiency and reliability as well as government’s sustainability expectations. While benchmarking is a tool for achieving such objectives, how are these benchmarking exercises best implemented? This report analyses illustrative benchmarking exercises to provide insights into these important questions.
This report provides an assessment of both the strengths and potential areas for improvement of the education system of the People’s Republic of China. It articulates the inputs and outputs of China’s education system, brings in up-to-date policies and practices implemented in China, and provides an in-depth analysis on how China’s education system is performing in four overarching dimensions: learning environment, curriculum and teaching practices, student outcomes and education governance. Additionally, this report compares China with other high performing education systems to show the common or divergent patterns between them, offering insights for education systems around the world.
This publication presents a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of isotope production capabilities and uses in the world and an analysis of issues related to isotope production and use including transportation, sealed source accountability, maintaining the government role, and third party liability concerns.