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Enabling effective, joint donor responses to corruption is a complex task that requires careful management of potential tensions and trade-offs. This guidance helpsdevelopment agencies and their staff operating in countries that receive official development assistance (ODA) to formulate co-ordinated responses to allegations of significant corruption. It provides a set of illustrative questions to facilitate joint donor responses in the immediate aftermath of incidents of corruption, so as to prevent slow, contradictory or ill-informed reactions. It serves as a practical tool for implementing the OECD Council Recommendation for Development Co-operation Actors on Managing the Risk of Corruption.
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.
Southern Africa suffers from disproportionately expensive capital and this is denying the region its full growth potential. This book presents the ideas and proposals of a group of experts and practitioners from the state and business environments, brought together by the OECD Development Centre with public and private sector partners, on reducing the cost of capital in the region. It thus provides a unique insight into the nature of the problem of the cost of capital in Southern Africa and the effects it has on business activity and infrastructure development. In addition, the authors set out to define strategies for reducing capital cost, outlining measures suitable for government and private actors.
"This collection makes a very worthwhile and stimulating contribution to the important question of reducing capital costs in Southern Africa."
-Ian Plenderleith, Southern African Reserve Bank
What qualifies an economy as “emerging”? The answers provided in this book lead to a fresh conception of the diversity of the African continent. Thus, growth dynamics cannot simply be measured in economic terms. Indicators must also include governance, efficiency and democracy of institutions, and an appropriate climate for business. All these issues are linked to policies, and the outstanding conclusion of this book, in the face of embedded “Afro-pessimism”, is that policies do matter for growth; that there is no “African mystery”, simply poor policies and bad governance. Reform and Growth in Africa is a contribution to the search for a reversal of the economic plight of African countries, based upon national experience and policy reform. This book reflects the contributions to the first edition of the International Forum on African Perspectives, which was held in Paris in February 2000. The forum was created by the African Development Bank and the OECD Development Centre as an annual meeting place of ideas and strategies from African countries and from the OECD region. The aim of the Forum is to create an area where the knowledge bases of the partners can be combined to exploit their specific advantages in the search for solutions to the economic problems of Africa. The Forum also includes an open meeting where these ideas can be tested in front of a wide audience of people from the worlds of politics, administration, academia, the media and business.
The need to reform Kazakhstan’s mining sector has been very high on the policy agenda. The country has been adversely affected by the downward trend in commodity prices since 2012, with metal prices falling almost 60% over the five years to early 2016. In 2015 and 2016, Kazakhstan real GDP growth slowed to 1.2% and 1%, respectively, the weakest since the 1990s. While 2017 saw growth bounce back to 4%, the recovery still lacks the momentum needed to put Kazakhstan back on the path of rapid convergence with the world’s advanced economies.
Reforms to China’s enterprises are central to the effort to complete the transformation to a market economy that has been underway since 1978. Reforms have become all the more urgent with the severe financial problems now being suffered by a large portion of China’s businesses, and with China’s prospective entry into the World Trade Organisation. Enterprise reforms involve both state owned and non-state businesses, and encompass a wide range of individual policies to bolster financial performances, improve behaviour, and provide supporting institutions and infrastructure essential to a modern enterprise economy.
The study in this volume describes the main reforms that are being undertaken in each of these areas, the progress that is being made, the problems that are being encountered, and the challenges that remain to be overcome. The overall message is that the enterprise reforms are now at a critical juncture. Important progress is being made; but much more remains to be done and rapid advances are needed in several key areas if the overall reform process is to be sustained and China is to realise its growth potential.
Topics covered: the current situation of China’s enterprises; economic restructuring and SOE reorganisation; establishing effective corporate governance mechanisms; the role of the financial system; developing social security programmes.
Kazakhstan has in recent years intensified its co-operation with the OECD, most notably with the launch in January 2015 of the OECD Kazakhstan Country Programme, which has encompassed co-operation on almost 20 separate projects in a wide range of policy domains. This volume presents an overview of the work done in the main areas covered by the Country Programme, assessing both progress made and the challenges ahead with respect to public governance, economic reform, green growth and social policy. It also considers the linkages between these various strands of policy, in an effort to derive cross-cutting lessons for the future and to present a more integrated understanding of Kazakhstan’s reforms.
This report assesses the state of Armenia’s sanitation services, which are in poor shape, and proposes ways forward for reforming the sector by: ensuring equitable access by all and identifying solutions that work for the poorest and most remote communities; generating economies of scale and scope, and reducing both investment and operational costs for the efficient delivery of sanitation services; and moving towards sustainable cost recovery for the sanitation sector, by identifying how much funding can be mobilised from within the sector and how much external transfers are required. The state of Armenia’s sanitation services are inadequate, with 51% of the population in rural areas using unimproved facilities, causing direct damage to the environment and exposing inhabitants to health risks, and better access but degraded sewerage-system infrastructure in urban areas, posing health hazards due to potential cross-contamination between sewage and drinking water. According to preliminary estimates, EUR 2.6 billion of investments will be required to meet Armenia’s sanitation needs, with approximately EUR 1 billion needing to be spent in the next 7 to 10 years. Given the country’s current economic situation, this investment will have to be spread over time and targeted to avoid further deterioration of infrastructure and increase of the financing gap.
Recent global changes have placed regional integration at the centre of Africa’s political and economic agenda. This Atlas is both a driver and the result of strategic thinking on regional integration in West Africa. Containing maps, statistics and analyses, it describes the West African region, its population, settlement, territories, its economy and its vulnerabilities. It analyses the developments and the ways in which West Africa is conforming to a constantly changing global environment. The Atlas also identifies the medium- and long-term trends and provides elements for strategic thinking on the future.
Mexico is a multi-faceted country. Given the geographical and ethnic diversity of Mexico's regions, as well as their particular cultural and historical traditions, each of the regions making up the Federation calls for a specific development policy. At the same time, economic, political and social equilibria are going to be affected by the trend towards a greater decentralisation of political structures. Mexico is faced with two major challenges. How can consistency of government action be maintained in conjunction with a firm resolve to decentralise? How is it possible to reconcile regional and national development while striving to achieve the country's integration within the world economy? This study, which includes many tables, maps and figures as background material, makes it possible to define these challenges more clearly and therefore to clarify regional policy options for the coming decade.
The trade liberalisation agreements signed between the European Union and the southern Mediterranean countries carry risks as well as benefits. They reveal structural weaknesses in the partner countries, including continued rent seeking, market segmentation, a weak modern private sector and inadequate fiscal systems. In the short term, since the agreements only cover industrial goods and not agriculture or services, there is a risk of job losses in the domestic industrial sector due to competition from the EU.
The authors of this study highlight the opportunities the agreements offer for supporting reforms to encourage industrial restructuring through financial transfers, providing incentives for producers to diversify, and securing new markets. Achieving the reforms, however, will require political will in the southern Mediterranean countries and complementary reforms in the European Union to open its markets further to include those sectors currently excluded from the agreements. Moreover, as demonstrated by the authors' detailed analysis of the Egyptian and Tunisian cases, a regional response to the challenges posed by the agreements is likely to bring more benefits than a purely national response.
Regional integration and co-ordination are not a panacea but they could hold the key to African countries' long-awaited participation in the world economy. This was one of the conclusions of the second International Forum on African Perspectives, jointly organised by the African Development Bank and the OECD Development Centre in February 2001, at which OECD and African economists discussed the prospects for regional initiatives in Africa.
While many other factors need to be taken into consideration, regional approaches -- provided they are accompanied by domestic reforms -- can present an effective response to globalisation. Indeed, given the isolation of the African countries from the world economy, regional initiatives may be the only sustainable solution to the economic, political and social challenges raised by globalisation.
Deepening economic integration via regional co-operation has emerged as a key priority in the reform strategies of most developing economies over the past decade. This is evidenced by the explosive growth in bilateral and regional trading agreements in which they now participate. Regional aid for trade can help developing countries spur regional economic integration, enhance competitiveness, and plug into regional production networks.
Based on a rich set of experiences regarding regional aid for trade projects and programmes, the study finds that regional aid for trade offers great potential as a catalyst for growth, development and poverty reduction. The study recommends greater emphasis on regional aid for trade as a means of improving regional economic integration and development prospects. While regional aid for trade faces many practical implementation challenges, experience has shown that associated problems are not insurmountable but do require thorough planning, careful project formulation, and prioritization on the part of policy makers.
For national governments, the importance of regional development policies reflects two important realities: first, people’s well-being is strongly influenced by where they live and work; and, secondly, it is often possible to identify opportunities and potential policy complementarities at local or regional level that are not apparent from national capitals. Leveraging this potential creates a double dividend, increasing both aggregate productivity and inclusion. This Policy Insight discusses how Kazakhstan can improve its regional development policy by adopting a more bottom-up, place-based approach in areas where a high degree of centralisation has sometimes prevailed. It suggests the development of place-based policy processes and tools to support economic activities based on the identification and mobilisation of local strengths and assets, and to realise further agglomeration potential. It also discusses ways to strengthen a multilevel governance framework that enables the delivery of such policies.
Over the last decades, and in line with the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, cities and regions have played an important part in helping to implement global agendas at local level through their Decentralised Development Cooperation (DDC) activities. This report analyses the evolution of financial flows, emerging trends and innovative paradigms related to the development co-operation of local and regional governments, including but not limited to official development assistance extended by sub-national governments. It promotes a territorial approach to development co-operation and provides policy recommendations to maximise the effectiveness, benefits and outcomes of DDC at all levels, while acknowledging the diversity of approaches, definitions and concepts across OECD DAC countries active in DDC.
Fragile states lag far behind meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, representing 75% of the MDG deficit. Fragile states already lacked the institutional strength to adequately respond to both financial and environmental shocks. The effects of three consecutive and inter-related shocks – food, fuel and the secondary effects of the financial crisis – risk reversing progress achieved by some post-conflict states, and further entrenching insecurity in others.
Although official development assistance to fragile states is growing in real terms, it is increasingly concentrated, and half of fragile states face the prospects of declining aid. There is a need to maintain aid levels and meet aid pledges, but also to improve the quality of support to fragile states.
This report serves as a tool to better monitor the levels, timing and composition of resource flows to fragile states, and presents salient facts on aid flows to fragile states, the impact on fragile states of the three crises and the need for a whole-of-government response.
The publication Revenue Statistics in Africa is jointly undertaken by the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration and the OECD Development Centre, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF). It compiles comparable tax revenue and non-tax revenue statistics for eight countries in Africa: Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritius, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia. The model is the OECD Revenue Statistics database which is a fundamental reference, backed by a well-established methodology, for OECD member countries. Extending the OECD methodology to African countries enables comparisons about tax levels and tax structures on a consistent basis, both among African economies and with OECD, Latin American, Caribbean and Asian economies.
The publication Revenue Statistics in Africa is jointly undertaken by the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration and the OECD Development Centre, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) with funding by the European Union. It compiles comparable tax revenue and non-tax revenue statistics for 16 countries in Africa: Cabo Verde, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Togo, Tunisia and Uganda. The model is the OECD Revenue Statistics database which is a fundamental reference, backed by a well-established methodology, for OECD member countries. Extending the OECD methodology to African countries enables comparisons of tax-to-GDP ratios and tax structures on a consistent basis, both among African economies and with OECD, Latin American, Caribbean and Asian economies.