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Reaching climate neutrality requires economic transformations of unprecedented scale and speed. Immediate action from the business community can avoid unnecessary costs, create wellbeing co-benefits and prepare local businesses with a better competitive position in the future climate neutral economy. This report shows what reaching climate neutrality by 2040 means for Hamburg businesses and identifies key actions they need to undertake. It provides insights where the Hamburg economy and its businesses stand on the way to climate neutrality and on their needs to advance, drawing on a business survey. The study also shares insights from action plans of selected comparison cities. It points to cross-sector as well as to sector-specific challenges and opportunities for Hamburg businesses. This includes making better use of low-cost renewables, addressing energy efficiency in buildings as well as challenges and opportunities in activities in and around the port and in industry. It highlights Hamburg's potential as a hydrogen hub as well as the need to adopt circular economy practices. It illustrates that a regional and business perspective are necessary to achieve climate neutrality in prosperity, requiring individual and collective business action.

This report on Bulgaria is the eighth country study published in a series of reports looking into how policies connect people with jobs. It provides a detailed analysis of Bulgaria’s inactive and unemployed population and identifies groups of people who would benefit from measures and services provided by Bulgaria’s Public Employment Service. In addition, the report assesses Bulgaria’s labour market policies to reach out to inactive people and help them integrate in the labour market, and offers recommendations for improvement.

One of the key areas in fuel safety is the analysis of fuel behaviour under reactivity-initiated accident conditions. Reactivity-initiated accident fuel rod codes have been developed for a significant period of time and they all have shown their ability to reproduce some experimental results with a certain degree of adequacy. However, they sometimes rely on different specific modelling assumptions whose influence on the final results of the calculations is difficult to evaluate. This report summarises three phases of benchmark conducted by the NEA between 2010 and 2019 with codes for calculating fuel behaviour in reactivity initiated accidents. Building on previous NEA reports, it provides recommendations for future research and code enhancements for safety analysis regarding reactivity accidents.

Following the initial report on the results of the first PISA survey, this report looks more closely at performance in reading. It shows reading literacy levels of students aged 15, in 32 countries, in terms of how well they can use written materials to meet the challenges of the real world and to become lifelong learners. This book will help readers understand better the factors associated with reading well in the modern world.

This report presents policy options for the successful integration of drones into the transport system. How can countries reap the benefits of drone transport while limiting risks? The report examines concerns about the acceptability, efficiency and sustainability of drone transport. The analysis covers passenger and freight drones with different payloads and ranges, and also addresses other drone uses that support the transport sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic had massive consequences for societies and health systems across the OECD and beyond. Health systems were not resilient enough. Resilient health systems plan and are ready for shocks, such as pandemics, economic crises or the effects of climate change. They are able to minimise the negative consequences of crises, recover as quickly as possible, and adapt to become better performing and more prepared. Smart, targeted investments in health system resilience are needed to improve health and ensure the next shock is less disruptive and costly. This report reviews the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and applies them to build policy recommendations to ensure the global community is ready for the next crisis. The reviews and recommendations cover health system issues – including workforce, digitalisation, continuity of care and mental health – and other topics, including long-term care, supply chains and international co-operation.

This report looks at ways to improve the resilience of systems to deal with the unexpected arrival of large inflows of refugees and other vulnerable migrants. It begins with an overview of the recent flows of migrants seeking protection, discusses the expected economic impact of these flows, and notes what has been an unprecedented multilateral response. It then examines the process of integrating refugees and other vulnerable migrants, in terms of their economic and social outcomes, as well as specific factors of vulnerability. It also provides a comprehensive assessment of the transition policies in place to support their livelihood in destination and transit countries, as well as in origin countries upon return. Finally, the report tackles issues of anticipation, monitoring and reacting, examining the role of early warning mechanisms and the challenge of improving information so as to better monitor integration outcomes and frame policies.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 added urgency to the need to address long-standing pressures on health systems, linked to growing citizens’ expectations, population ageing and more complex and costly health care needs. As the first point of contact, primary health care that provides comprehensive, continuous, and co-ordinated care is key to boosting preventive care, treating those who need care, and helping people become more active in managing their own health. It has the potential to improve health system efficiency and health outcomes for people across socio-economic levels, and make health systems people-centred. This report examines primary health care across OECD countries before the COVID-19 pandemic, and draws attention to how primary health care is not living up to its full potential. Doing things differently – through new models of organising services, better co-ordination among providers, better use of digital technology, and better use of resources and incentives – helps to improve care, reduce the need for hospitalisations, and mitigate health inequalities. This report identifies key policy challenges that OECD countries need to address to realise the full potential of primary health care, and reviews progress and innovations towards transforming primary health care.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing sanctions greatly complicated overland freight transport between Europe and China via the so-called Northern Corridor, which runs through the Russian Federation. This has prompted renewed attention to the development of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, a multimodal route running through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Türkiye – the so-called “Middle Corridor”. The present report looks at the Middle Corridor’s potential and at the challenges that must be overcome to realise it, drawing on the perspective of relevant private-sector actors in the four Middle Corridor countries. Governments along the corridor have invested heavily to improve transport infrastructure, yet important bottlenecks remain due to the geography of the route, the number of border crossings and the lack of regional trade integration. This study, based on surveys from and interviews with the private sector, maps and sequences main reform priorities in relation to regional integration, infrastructure, trade facilitation and supra-national coordination. It suggests that the primary aim should be to develop the corridor not solely as a transit route for actors from outside the region but as an engine of integration and trade integration in Central Asia and the South Caucasus.

At a time when public expenditure is undergoing change to accommodate new needs, this report studies the impact of four institutions of the budget process upon re-allocation:  medium-term expenditure frameworks, rules of budgetary discipline, the Minister of finance, and programme review.  It develops a micro-economic classification of public expenditures and gives insight into the shifting pattern of central government expenditure in the last 20 years in 12 selected OECD countries on the basis of that classification.

This study examines the Spanish Information Society strategy plan Avanza 2. Upon request from Spain, focus has been on two selected perspectives corresponding to overall objectives of the Plan Avanza 2: Improving the communication infrastructures and  achieving a paperless administration. The e-government section on a paperless administration is grounded in the two areas of e-taxation and e-justice. Thus the study is not a comprehensive review of Plan Avanza 2 – only of selected parts.

Many fisheries around the world are characterised by excessive fishing effort, low productivity and inadequate profitability.  Considerable benefits can be made from rebuilding such fisheries.  This publication analyses the issues and challenges governments face as they develop and implement plans to rebuild fisheries.  The focus is on the economic and institutional issues and builds on evidence from OECD fisheries.

This report describes recent trends in the international migration of doctors and nurses in OECD countries. Over the past decade, the number of doctors and nurses has increased in many OECD countries, and foreign-born and foreign-trained doctors and nurses have contributed to a significant extent. New in-depth analysis of the internationalisation of medical education shows that in some countries (e.g. Israel, Norway, Sweden and the United States) a large and growing number of foreign-trained doctors are people born in these countries who obtained their first medical degree abroad before coming back. The report includes four case studies on the internationalisation of medical education in Europe (France, Ireland, Poland and Romania) as well as a case study on the integration of foreign-trained doctors in Canada.

This Recommendation is the first international instrument to address regulatory policy, management and governance as a whole-of-government activity. It sets out the measures by which governments can implement or advance regulatory reform.

Policy coherence is increasingly in the interest of OECD countries and developing countries alike, given their growing economic, social and environmental interdependence. This report presents scenarios showing numerical results of changes to individual policies as well as policy packages implemented simultaneously by OECD and developing countries. The results can be used to anticipate the outcomes of decisions and implement the appropriate set of policies. The scenarios also show how policy combinations could substantially improve both economic and environmental outcomes together, confirming the need for policy coherence. 

Australia has always been a nation of immigrants. More than one quarter of its population in 2015 was born abroad. Immigrants make an important economic and demographic contribution and help address skill and labour shortages. Labour migration is managed through a complex, but well-functioning and effective system which sets and respects annual migration targets. In recent years, the labour migration system has shifted from a mainly supply-driven system to a system where demand-driven migration represents close to half of the permanent skilled migration programme and demand-driven temporary migration has also risen sharply. In addition, two-step migration has gained ground in recent years. The review examines the implications of these changes for the composition of immigrants and their labour market outcomes. Moreover, it discusses recent changes in the tools used to manage labour migration and provides a detailed analysis on the impact of the introduction of SkillSelect on the efficiency of the system. Finally, the review discusses the extent to which the current labour migration system responds to the labour market needs of Australia's States and Territories.

Austria has low levels of labour migration from non-EU/EFTA countries. At the same time, intra-EU free mobility has grown significantly and since 2011, overall migration for employment is above the OECD average. It recently reformed its labour migration system, making it more ready to accept labour migrants where they are needed, especially in medium-skilled occupations in which there were limited admission possibilities previously. This publication analyses the reform and the Austrian labour migration management system in international comparison.