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Since 2020, a series of shocks to the global economy has had significant impacts on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs and their access to finance. Most recently, significant inflationary pressures have led to tighter lending conditions, limiting the flow of finance to SMEs and acting as a barrier to investment. Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs 2024: An OECD Scoreboard monitors SME and entrepreneurship financing trends, conditions and policy developments in close to 50 countries. It documents a strong increase in the cost of SME financing in 2022, alongside a significant decline in SME lending. Equity finance also fell sharply in 2022, after a year of historically high growth in 2021. Women-led and minority-owned businesses, which typically find it more difficult to access venture capital financing, were affected disproportionately. Against this backdrop, the Scoreboard highlights the recent measures governments have taken to support SME access to finance, including finance for the green transition. A continued focus on diversifying financial sources and instruments will be important to meet the different needs of all types of SMEs and entrepreneurs, and enable them to act as an engine of resilient, sustainable and inclusive growth.
Rising disinformation has far-reaching consequences in many policy areas ranging from public health to national security. It can cast doubt on factual evidence, jeopardise the implementation of public policies and undermine people's trust in the integrity of democratic institutions. This report explores how to respond to these challenges and reinforce democracy. It presents an analytical framework to guide countries in the design of policies, looking at three complementary dimensions: implementing policies to enhance the transparency, accountability, and plurality of information sources; fostering societal resilience to disinformation; and upgrading governance measures and public institutions to uphold the integrity of the information space.
As climate change increases exposure to natural disasters, countries need new solutions to mitigate risks of natural hazards. For many in Asia and the Pacific, mobilising existing resources is not enough: they need to consider a grand design of disaster risk financing strategies. Catastrophe bonds (CAT bonds) can be an effective, market-based financing tool for the region. While the global CAT bond market has grown steadily since the 1990s, it remains weakly developed in Asia and the Pacific. Its successful development there requires robust purpose-built legal frameworks; developed general bond markets, especially in local currency; appropriate capacity building; and data-driven pricing models. This report explores each of these conditions along with policy suggestions for fostering them, and discusses the development of multi-country CAT bonds in Asia and the Pacific.
Finding sufficient funds to pay for more resilient health systems is challenging in the current economic context. COVID-19 has shown the need for additional targeted spending on public health interventions, the digital transformation of health systems, and bolstering the health workforce. Rising incomes, technological innovation and changing demographics put further upward pressure on health spending. This could result in health spending reaching 11.8% of GDP across OECD counties by 2040.
This publication explores the policy options to finance more resilient health systems whilst maintaining fiscal sustainability. It finds that the scale of the additional health financing needs requires ambitious and transformative policy changes. Robust actions to encourage healthier populations and policies to reduce ineffective spending can put future health expenditure on a far gentler upward trajectory. These would enable spending to reach a more sustainable 10.6% of GDP in 2040.
Better budgetary governance is critical. It improves how public funds for health are determined, executed and evaluated. Therefore, a focus of this report is on how good budgeting practices can increase the efficiency of current public spending, and also enable more ambitious policy changes in the medium to longer-term. Findings of this report are targeted at health and finance policy makers, with improved dialogue between health and finance ministries especially important when governments are operating in a constrained fiscal setting.
This profile provides a concise and policy-focused overview of the state of health and the healthcare system in France, 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 France; the determinants of health, focusing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the French 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 France.
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.
This profile provides a concise and policy-focused overview of the state of health and the healthcare system in Finland, 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 Finland; the determinants of health, focusing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the Finnish 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 Finland.
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.
The scale of Uzbekistan’s green transition requires a marked increase in private financing to fill the existing spending gap. The outsized role of the state in Uzbekistan’s economy and its underdeveloped domestic capital market act as significant constraints and call for a diversification of sources to finance the green transition. Since 2021, Uzbekistan has made green bonds a central part of its strategy to fill the financing gap and mobilise new sources of capital for its domestic green infrastructure projects. This publication explores the current market and institutional set-up in Uzbekistan, the reforms that have led to recent issuances of both sovereign and corporate thematic bonds, and the remaining barriers to further uptake of the instrument. The report also provides policy recommendations related to the market's institutional set up, Uzbekistan's regulatory framework for debt capital markets and emerging opportunities for further green bond use aimed at key stakeholders, including policy makers and market participants.
Os comportamentos dos gestores de alto e médio escalão são importantes para promover culturas organizacionais abertas, mitigar os riscos à integridade e fomentar o comportamento ético de seus funcionários. Este relatório examina as principais questões relacionadas à liderança em integridade na administração pública federal do Brasil, com base em uma ampla pesquisa com altos agentes públicos. Informado e inspirado por insights comportamentais, ele fornece recomendações concretas para o fortalecimento da liderança em integridade no Brasil.
The FDI Qualities Review of Croatia provides policy recommendations on the design and implementation of a new strategic framework for investment promotion and facilitation in Croatia. It provides an assessment of how foreign direct investment (FDI) contributes to sustainable development, including productivity and innovation, job quality and skills development, decarbonisation and regional development. It also examines the institutional and policy framework for investment promotion and facilitation at national and subnational levels. It gives an overview of Croatia’s investment incentives regime, focusing on the effective design and implementation of tax incentives. The report indicates potential areas for institutional and policy reform to improve Croatia’s investment climate and strengthen the economic, social and environmental benefits of FDI.
Although Africa accounts for one-fifth of the global population, the region currently attracts only 3% of global energy investment. By 2030, energy investment needs to double to over USD 200 billion per year, in order for African countries to achieve all their energy-related development goals, including universal access to modern energy, while meeting in time and in full their nationally determined contributions.
Financing Clean Energy in Africa, a World Energy Outlook Special Report, builds on the key findings from the Africa Energy Outlook 2022, which introduced the Sustainable Africa Scenario (SAS), and charts innovative investment solutions across the continent that are critical to scale up energy investment. It develops a theory of change based on the positive spillover effects of increasing the availability of affordable capital for clean energy projects. Currently, the cost of capital for energy projects in African countries is at least 2-3x higher than in advanced economies and China, which hinders investment by raising project costs.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) and the African Development Bank Group have joined forces to produce this new analysis, which benefitted from the review of over 85 case studies and over 40 stakeholder interviews. The report focuses on a range of topics, spanning technologies and financing providers, including local institutions, and looks at what types of capital are most suited for the specificities of each sector or technology. The analysis pays close attention to how to scale up private investment, including the role of de-risking support from development finance institutions (DFIs) and donors: by 2030, USD 28 billion of concessional capital will be necessary to mobilise the required USD 90 billion in private investment in clean energy. Increasing the role of the private sector allows DFIs and donors to also scale up support to non-commercial areas, such as enabling environments, unproven technologies and fragile and conflict-afflicted states, unproven technologies.
By 2050, the global population living in cities is projected to reach 5 billion, growing from 3.5 billion in 2015. Massive investment in infrastructure will be needed to accommodate this growth, and to adapt infrastructure to climate change and benefit from the digital transition. This report explores three ways to meet this challenge. Firstly, it outlines how new forms of urban planning can help to mobilise private finance for inclusive, resilient and sustainable urban investment. Secondly, it explores how leveraging private investment can help to strengthen cities capacity to support needed investment in a tighter fiscal environment. Finally, it considers the potential opportunities and challenges for mobilising sustainable finance – green, social and sustainable bonds and loans, sustainability-linked bonds and catastrophe bonds – for infrastructure investment by City Governments. The report also includes 17 short case studies from 12 countries that demonstrate innovative practices for creating the Cities of Tomorrow.
The oil and gas industry has some of the best and most cost-effective opportunities to reduce methane emissions. The potential to do so is clear. Some countries and companies have already demonstrated that achieving near-zero emissions from oil and gas operations is technically and economically possible. There are a growing number of initiatives, policies and regulations aiming to reduce emissions globally, and many reductions can be realised while saving money. However, overall progress has been much too slow, despite the record profits that the oil and gas industry saw in 2022. This report looks in detail at the investment requirements to deliver a sharp reduction in oil and gas methane emissions to 2030, and how these could be financed. The analysis is intended to inform discussions in the runup to COP28 and help prompt the necessary actions to accelerate the pace of change.
This report provides policy recommendations on how to strengthen the economic, social and environmental benefits of foreign direct investment (FDI). It provides an extensive assessment on how FDI contributes to Chile’s economic diversification into sustainable and knowledge-intensive activities (e.g. green hydrogen, information technology), and also assesses the policy and regulatory framework influencing the impact of FDI on sustainable development in Chile.
This toolkit offers practical guidance to adherents to the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Recommendation on Enabling Civil Society in Development Co-operation and Humanitarian Assistance. It helps them implement the Recommendation’s provisions pertaining to strengthening local ownership and partner-country civil society as independent development and humanitarian actors.
Finland has set one of the most ambitious climate targets in the world, a legal obligation to reach carbon neutrality by 2035. It has made notable progress towards this target, deploying the first new nuclear reactor in Europe in over 15 years and strongly expanding wind generation. Thanks to the progress Finland has made on its clean energy transition, the country has the second lowest share of fossil fuels in its energy supply among IEA members. It is also reducing its reliance on Russian energy imports and ensuring energy security by increasing imports from other countries, raising domestic renewable energy production and improving energy efficiency.
Despite these notable successes in clean energy and energy security, significant challenges remain. Imported fossil fuels still account for over a third of the energy supply while some areas of the Finnish economy, such as transport and key industrial activities, remain dependant on fossil fuels. Also, land use change and forestry in Finland, which have historically offset a significant amount of greenhouse gas emissions, became a net source of emissions for the first time in 2021.
In this report, the IEA provides a range of energy policy recommendations to help Finland smoothly manage the transition to a secure, efficient and flexible carbon neutral energy system.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Austria provides the knowledge and financial resources needed to stimulate the economy and sustainable development. In addition, the activities and employment practices of foreign affiliates of multinational enterprises influence the creation and quality of jobs, including for women. This report asseses gender equality and women's empowerment in the Austrian labour market. It then examines the impact of FDI on several dimensions of gender equality, including employment, wages, skills development, career progression and entrepreneurship. It also briefly explores areas for policy consideration.
Evaluation is the foundation of evidence-based policy. Yet there is a dearth of reliable impact evaluation in the area of SME and entrepreneurship policy. This publication issues OECD guidance on how governments can promote reliable SME and entrepreneurship policy evaluation. It emphasises practices including using control groups, setting clear policy objectives and targets and accounting for business survival and non-survival. It shows that reliable evaluation of SME and entrepreneurship policy is increasingly accessible given improvements in data and techniques in recent years and illustrates this with examples of 50 reliable evaluations across many SME and entrepreneurship policy areas and 28 OECD countries. Overall, the publication issues a call for more systematic and reliable evaluation of SME and entrepreneurship policies following the guidance offered.
The publication also examines the findings of reliable evaluations internationally, including meta evaluations. The evidence is mixed but generally more robust and consistent for policies to improve access to finance than in the provision of training and advisory services. Some policies have positive impacts on key measures whereas others do not. The reasons are explored, including variations in the targeting of policies and in policy delivery approaches.
Este informe analiza la forma como la institución de fiscalización superior de México, la Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF), puede optimizar su uso de la analítica de datos. Si bien el informe se concentra en el uso de datos para mejorar la detección de riesgos de integridad, también reconoce las implicaciones de un mejor uso de la analítica para la estrategia general de transformación digital de la ASF. Asimismo, proporciona una serie de propuestas para optimizar la gobernanza de datos de la ASF e incorporar la analítica a sus iniciativas estratégicas. Finalmente, evalúa el impulso a las capacidades analíticas en la ASF, incluyendo el abordaje de consideraciones sobre integridad a través de una mejor coordinación, el desarrollo de habilidades digitales y la promoción de una cultura basada en datos.
Con el fin de apoyar a la institución de fiscalización superior de México, la Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF), en el cumplimiento de su mandato, este informe analiza buenas prácticas de países OCDE sobre la incorporación de temas de gobernanza en las auditorías a obras públicas. También proporciona ejemplos y evalúa diferentes consideraciones estratégicas, incluyendo objetivos y recursos, sobre la organización y las prácticas de la ASF para la auditoría de infraestructura. Finalmente, analiza las prácticas de auditoría en el contexto de emergencias.
To support Mexico’s supreme audit institution, the ASF (Auditoría Superior de la Federación), in fulfilling its mandate, this report analyses good practices in OECD countries for incorporating governance issues into public works audits. It provides examples and assesses different strategic considerations for ASF’s infrastructure audit organisation and practices, including objectives and resources. Finally, it analyses infrastructure auditing practices in the context of emergencies.