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Environmental impact assessments are an essential component of making decisions on transport infrastructure investments. Traditional procedures have proved ineffective for impacts that go beyond the scope of projects in isolation. Strategic environmental assessment has emerged in response, to address large scale effects including impacts on traffic across networks, impacts on climate change and biodiversity and the impacts of policy decisions as opposed simply to individual projects. This report examines recent experience in developing environmental assessment internationally and makes recommendations on maximising the effectiveness of this new tool.
The principles of sustainable development play an integral role in making development assistance work at the level of policies, plans and programmes. In response to the Paris Declaration call to “… develop and apply common approaches for ‘Strategic Environmental Assessment’ at sector and national levels” among donors and partners, the Guidance on Applying Strategic Environmental Assessment was endorsed in 2006 by members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee, representatives of developing countries receiving aid, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Bank and many other agencies. Since then, a growing number of countries at all levels of development have legislation or regulations prescribing the application of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and many more are introducing it as part of their policy tools. This is creating unique opportunities for better policy making and planning by incorporating environmental considerations into high-level decision-making and opening new mechanisms to build consensus on development priorities within governments themselves and between governments and societies.
Many development co-operation agencies and their partners are already making good progress in applying SEA. This publication presents the nine most interesting case studies of SEA in progress, selected from a total 100. These nine cases highlight that SEA can:
• Safeguard environmental assets for sustainable poverty reduction and development;
• Build public engagement in decision making;
• Prevent costly mistakes by alerting decision-makers to potentially unsustainable development options at an early stage in the decision-making process;
• Speed up implementation of projects and programmes;
• Facilitate co-operation around shared environmental resources and contribute to conflict prevention.
Strategic environmental assessment is emerging as a tool for integrated decision-making on major transport infrastructure investments and in the planning and policy making process more generally. The discipline is a new one, and by reviewing experience around the world, this report contributes to the development of effective procedures for incorporating adequate environmental assessments in all strategic transport sector decisions.
The renewed interest in nuclear energy triggered by concerns about global climate change and security of supply could lead to substantial growth in nuclear electricity generation and expanded interest in fast neutron reactors with closed fuel cycles. Moving from the current fleet of thermal neutron reactors to fast neutron systems will require many decades and extensive RD&D efforts. This book identifies and analyses key strategic and policy issues raised by such a transition, and provides guidance to decision makers on the best approaches for implementing transition scenarios.
A wealth of technical information exists on nuclear fuel cycle options – combinations of nuclear fuel types, reactor types, used or spent nuclear fuel (SNF) treatments, and disposal schemes – and most countries with active nuclear power programmes conduct some level of research and development on advanced nuclear fuel cycles. However, perhaps because of the number of options that exist, it is often difficult for policy makers to understand the nature and magnitude of the differences between the various options.
This report explores the fuel cycle options and the differentiating characteristics of these options. It also describes the driving factors for decisions related to both the development of the fuel cycle and the characteristics resulting from implementing the option. It includes information on the current status and future plans for power reactors, reprocessing facilities, disposal facilities, and the status of research and development activities in several countries. It is designed for policy makers to understand the differences among the fuel cycle options in a way that is concise, understandable, and based on the existing technologies, while keeping technical discussions to a minimum.
The conference, organized by the ADB/OECD Anti-Corruption Initiative for Asia and the Pacific in late November 2008, explored (i) possible drivers and incentives for anti-corruption reform; (ii) the role of criminal law standards and corporate compliance mechanisms; (iii) the risks and countermeasures against private-to-private corruption; (iv) preventing and managing conflicts of interest; (v) international initiatives to counter bribery; (vi) how development partners can become involved in the fight against bribery and corruption. This book presents the proceedings of the conference.
This report was commissioned by Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and carried out jointly by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Korea Energy Economics Institute. The objective of the study was to provide high-level policy recommendations on Korea’s clean energy transition from coal in the power sector. The report covers a detailed review of policy and market developments around Korea’s transition to net zero. The scope of the report includes all sectors of the economy, industry and all the regions across the world, where we extract the main recommendations that are applicable to the case of Korea.
Currently, the power sector is the largest CO2-emitting sector and coal is the single biggest source of CO2 emissions, as it is the backbone of many electricity systems. Thus, coal power plants have been a target for reaching net zero emissions by 2050 for long time. Korea has firm objectives to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, aiming to accelerate the clean energy transition of coal power plants. Policy recommendations were formulated around two priorities: affordable and secure supply of electricity and people-centred transition.
This publication provides policy guidance on good practice in developing and implementing strategies for sustainable development. While it focuses on the experience of developing countries, many of the issues covered and lessons drawn are of equal relevance to developed countries. It draws from international experience over the past two decades in both developed and developing countries as well as from a process of multi-stakeholders dialogue in Bolivia, Burkina-Faso, Ghana, Namibia, Nepal, Pakistan, Tanzania and Thailand, to assess their experience of country-level strategies for sustainable development.
The DAC Guidelines on Strategies for Sustainable Development aim to provide guidance for development co-operation agencies in their efforts to assist developing countries towards sustainable development. They should also be of value to policy-makers, planners and development practitioners, as well as to academics, students and development analysts in all countries.
The service sector, in aggregate, now dominates total employment and value-added in OECD countries, accounting for more than 70% of these two measures, and continues to increase in importance. While services may play a slightly smaller role in rural regions than in urban areas, they are the dominant component of the rural economy. It is clear that a vibrant service sector is both vital for a prosperous local economy and crucial for meeting the needs of rural citizens.
This book provides an overview of the underlying problems in delivering services to rural regions. It contains a conceptual structure for thinking about rural service delivery problems and a strategy for thinking about the role of government in service delivery, as well as a discussion of the role that innovation and public management tools like co-design and co-delivery can play in designing better service delivery approaches. Also included are examples of different, successful policy strategies drawn from OECD countries.
Also available
The New Rural Paradigm: Policies and Governance (2006)
OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Germany (2007)
OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Mexico (2007)
OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Finland (2008)
OECD Rural Policy Reviews: The Netherlands (2008)
OECD Rural Policy Reviews: China (2009)
OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Italy (2009)
OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Spain (2009)
OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Québec, Canada (forthcoming)
What are the measures and strategies already taken by OECD countries to reduce or stabilise greenhouse gases from road transport? What frameworks exist to evaluate the impact and efficiency of these measures and strategies? And how effective are they?
With the continued growth forecast in car ownership and distance travelled, what are the expected trends in CO2 emissions and their consequences for the potential achievement of the Kyoto Protocol? What models are available to predict the level of CO2 emissions? Are they useful?
This report, which has been prepared by an OECD Working Group, uses a number of illustrative and pragmatic cases to provide important insights into these major questions.
As modern nuclear power programmes mature and large, commercial nuclear power plants and fuel cycle facilities approach the end of their useful life by reason of age, economics or change of policy on the use of nuclear power, new challenges associated with decommissioning and dismantling come to the fore. Politicians and the public may expect there to be a “right answer” to the choice of strategy for a particular type of facility, or even all facilities. Both this seminar and wider experience show that this is not the case.
Local factors and national political positions have a significant input and often result in widely differing strategy approaches to broadly similar decommissioning projects. All facility owners represented at the seminar were able to demonstrate a rational process for strategy selection and compelling arguments for the choices made. In addition to the papers that were presented, these proceedings include a summary of the discussions that took place.
This brochure is published within the framework of the Scheme for the Application of International Standards for Fruit and Vegetables established by OECD in 1962. It comprises explanatory notes and illustrations to facilitate the uniform interpretation of the current standard for strawberries. It demonstrates the quality parameters on high quality photographs. Thus it is a valuable tool for the inspection authorities, professional bodies and traders interested in international trade in strawberries. This brochure is trilingual (English, French, Spanish) and available in electronic format only.
This book provides comments and illustrations to facilitate the common interpretation of the standard in force for grading strawberries in international trade under the Scheme for the Application of International Standards for Fruit and Vegetables set up by the OECD in 1962. It is therefore a valuable tool for both the Inspection Authorities and professional bodies responsible for the application of standards or those interested in international trade of strawberries.
This report on Italy is the sixth country study published in a series of reports looking into how policies connect people with jobs. It discusses how active labour market policies in Italy are performing both on the national and the regional level, focussing particularly on the reform process in the system of public employment services initiated by the Jobs Act. The ongoing reform has good potential to improve the performance of employment services in Italy, particularly if the stakeholders of the system cooperate to establish a binding performance management framework and develop national IT infrastructure supporting the tasks of the local offices to serve jobseekers and employers. The National Agency for Active Labour Market Policies has a key role in encouraging the cooperation between the stakeholders, leading the development of new tools and methodologies and thus supporting the local employment offices to implement the new service model. Besides the general reform process, the review looks at some specific approaches regarding providing employment services in Italy – using jobseeker profiling tools to target active labour market policies; increasing quality and capacity of employment services by contracting out employment services to private service providers; and reaching out to employers and advancing demand-side services.
This report explores how countries can strengthen the resilience of their agricultural sectors to multiple risks. A shifting risk landscape in agriculture – due to increasing weather variability, natural hazards, pests and diseases, and market shocks – will require public and private actors to consider the risk landscape over the long term, place a greater emphasis on what can be done ex ante to reduce risk exposure and increase preparedness, and prioritise investments that build resilience capacities both on-farm and for the sector as a whole. This report offers a framework for applying resilience thinking to risk management in agriculture, and explores how four OECD countries – Australia, Canada, Italy and the Netherlands – are mainstreaming resilience into their agricultural risk management policy frameworks.
This report explores ways for Mexico’s supreme audit institution, Auditoría Superior de la Federación (ASF), to strengthen its use of analytics. While the report focuses on the use of data to enhance the detection of integrity risks, it also recognises the implications of better analytics for the ASF’s broader digital transformation strategy. It offers a range of proposals for enhancing ASF’s data governance and embedding analytics into strategic initiatives. It also looks at building ASF’s analytics capacity, including addressing integrity considerations through better co-ordination, digital skills development and nurturing a data-centric culture.
Apprenticeship systems have a crucial role to play in providing students, workers and jobseekers with relevant training opportunities and developing the right skills for the future in responding to changing labour market needs. This report focuses on how to strengthen the apprenticeship system in Scotland (United Kingdom). The Scottish apprenticeship system has made remarkable progress, becoming one of the most flexible and wide ranging systems in the OECD. Apprenticeship starts are on the rise and outcomes have been positive. Informed by international evidence, this report identifies strategies to make the system more responsive, innovative and inclusive. These include strengthened employer engagement, refined minimum requirements for programmes, strategic guidance and practical support for innovation in apprenticeships, and efforts to make the system more accessible and relevant so as to promote inclusion and equity.
This publication analyses the impact COVID-19 has had on asset-backed pension arrangements and the main policies countries have implemented in response to date. It then presents policy guidelines to help strengthen asset-backed pension arrangements and improve retirement outcomes in a post-COVID world. The publication also discusses the short- and long-term impact of COVID-19 on mortality, and the role that assets earmarked for retirement could play in the post-COVID recovery.