This document is a statement of policy set by the 1989 Council Decision-Recommendation on Compliance with Good Laboratory Practice [C(89)87(Final). It reiterates the decisions and the recommendations related to the role and responsibilities of governments, national GLP compliance monitoring authorities and inspectors set out in that Act and its Annexes and states current practices. The Working Group on GLP
is of the opinion that, while the Council Act allows “outsourcing” of inspection functions, this should be the exception rather than the rule and should be used only as an interim solution and primarily by new GLP compliance monitoring programmes.
Les évolutions urbanistiques, démographiques, et même climatiques, ont un impact sur les questions auxquelles doivent répondre les pays de l’OCDE en matière de protection de la vie et du bien-être des citoyens ou de garantie de la continuité de l’activité économique. En France les plus grands risques naturels connus concernent les inondations. Alors que plusieurs politiques publiques sur la gestion des risques d’inondation sont adoptées, celles-ci sont mises en œuvre à différents niveaux administratifs. Dans cette étude de cas, le Programme de l'OCDE sur l’avenir analyse une gestion intégrée dans le bassin de la Loire et examine les défis rencontrés. Au nombre des questions les plus cruciales figurent la concertation des parties-prenantes, l’investissement dans l’entretien des digues et le changement climatique.
Le Projet de l’OCDE sur l’avenir portant sur les politiques de gestion des risques identifie les principales difficultés de la gestion des risques au XXIe siècle et propose des solutions. Le projet met l’accent sur la cohérence des politiques de gestion des risques et sur leur capacité à faire face aux risques systémiques. Il couvre un vaste éventail de questions liées à la gestion des risques et s’attache à trois grandes thématiques : les catastrophes naturelles, les risques pour les infrastructures critiques et la protection de groupes sociaux particulièrement vulnérables.
Produced by the International Social Science Council (ISSC) and UNESCO, and published by the OECD, the 2013 World Social Science Report represents a comprehensive overview of the field gathering the thoughts and expertise of hundreds of social scientists from around the world.
This edition focuses on the transformative role of the social sciences in confronting climate and broader processes of environmental change, and in addressing priority problems from energy and water, biodiversity and land use, to urbanisation, migration and education.
The report includes 100 articles written by 150 authors from 41 countries all over the world. Authors represent some 24 disciplines, mainly in the social sciences.
The contributions highlight the central importance of social science knowledge for environmental change research, as a means of understanding changing environments in terms of social processes and as framework for finding concrete solutions towards sustainability.
This paper aims to support a process to establish a global emission inventory for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). It uses perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) as a reference to present an overall picture of global and regional emissions of PFASs and other related fluorinated substances due to the numerous interlinkages between PFCAs and many other fluorinated substances. The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the current understanding of historical and ongoing global and regional emissions of C4–C14 PFCAs and identifies critical gaps and key uncertainties in terms of data collection and integration to accurately measure global and regional emissions of C4–C14 PFCAs. The paper does not provide direct data on substances other than PFCAs, such as perfluoroalkane sulfonic acids (PFSAs) and perfluoroalkane phosphonic acids (PFPAs); however, information on and/or estimates of the emissions of these substances is an important element of understanding the global emissions of PFCAs and are provided in the background assessment and estimation. Recommendations for improving knowledge on global and regional emissions of PFAS are presented.
This working document has been prepared to address the assessment of secondary metabolites of microbial biocontrol agents. The main focus of this working document is the assessment of the hazards and risk of secondary metabolites produced during the manufacturing of microbial pest control products and after their application in the field. This document addresses a number of important topics for secondary metabolites, including concerns that microbial pest control products could be associated with known or as yet uncharacterised ‘new’ secondary metabolites. A background document is available as an annex to help provide clarity on issues and terminology related to secondary metabolites of microbial biocontrol agents. This document may also form the basis of a future OECD Guidance Document on the subject.
This Working Document is written for government and industry risk assessors, and for scientists involved in the registration and regulation of microbial pest control products (MPCPs) and their active agents (MPCAs). However, it can also be a useful tool in the assessment of microbial biocides. It presents the views of the different OECD countries on how they address these scientific issues in the safety evaluation of MPCPs. It is intended to be used as guidance in the safety assessment of microbials, but its use is not a requirement. For example, it can be used for the 4th list of substances to be assessed by the EU, for re-registrations of microbials, for national authorisations. In this way, government safety evaluations of data submitted for registration can be improved. With this guidance, (i) companies should be better prepared to submit the relevant data for risk assessment and (ii) regulatory authorities should be better prepared to review the submitted dossiers and monographs.
This Emission Scenario Document (ESD) presents an approach to estimate the emissions of substances used in wood preservatives (EU Product Type 8) from two stages of their life cycle: 1) application (industrial applications / in situ applications by professionals and amateurs) and storage of treated wood prior to shipment, and 2) treated wood-in service.
On 23 July 2001, negotiators from 178 nations reached an unexpected political agreement on how to proceed with the international struggle against unwanted climate change.Specifically,they set out detailed rules for implementing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climat Change.Participants and observers in Bonn, Germany quickly dubbed the accord a turning-point in the fight against global warming. But the document enshrining the agreement was so technical and allusive as to be incomprehensible to all but experts.This pamphlet, prepared by analysts in the International Energy Agency ’s Energy and Environment Division, sets out the terms of the Bonn agreement in layman ’s language. As in several earlier publications of this kind, the IEA seeks to inform the public debate and place it in context in a thoroughly dispassionate and objective way.
This report sets out the challenge for freshwater in a changing climate and provides policy guidance on how to navigate this new “waterscape”. It highlights the range of expected changes in the water cycle and the challenge of making practical, on-site adaptation decisions for water. It offers policymakers a risk-based approach to better “know”, “target” and “manage” water risks and proposes policy guidelines to prioritise action and improve the efficiency, timeliness and equity of adaptation responses.
The report also highlights general trends and good practices drawn from the OECD Survey of Policies on Water and Climate Change Adaptation, covering all 34 member countries and the European Commission. Individual country profiles are available, which provide a snapshot of the challenges posed by climate change for freshwater and the emerging policy responses (on-line only).
Finally, the report highlights the benefits of well-designed economic instruments (e.g. insurance schemes, water trading, water pricing), ecosystem-based approaches and ‘real options’ approaches to financing. These approaches can improve the flexibility of water policy and investment, reducing the cost of adjusting to changing conditions.
This report focuses on the urban water management challenges facing cities across OECD countries, and explores both national and local policy responses with respect to water-risk exposure, the state of urban infrastructures and dynamics, and institutional and governance architectures. The analyses focus on four mutually dependent dimensions – finance, innovation, urban-rural co-operation and governance – and proposes a solutions-oriented typology based on urban characteristics. The report underlines that sustainable urban water management will depend on collaboration across different tiers of government working together with local initiatives and stakeholders.
Agriculture is a major user of water and is responsible for much of its pollution. But the agricultural sector faces increasing competition for scarce water supplies from urban and industrial users and, increasingly, to sustain ecosystems. This conference proceedings explores how both governments and the private sector can expand the role of markets to allocate water used by all sectors and to get agricultural producers to account for the pollution that their sector generates.
This OECD Emission Scenario Document (ESD) provides information on the
sources, use patterns and release pathways of chemicals used in the treatment of water in a number of areas to assist in the estimation of releases of chemicals to the environment.
This publication examines the critical issues surrounding water security (water shortage, water excess, inadequate water quality, the resilience of freshwater systems), providing a rationale for a risk-based approach and the management of trade-offs between water and other (sectoral and environmental) policies.
The report sets out a three-step process to “know”, “target” and “manage” water risks: (1) appraising the risks, (2) judging the tolerability and acceptability of risks and weighing risk-risk trade-offs, and (3) calibrating appropriate responses.
The publication provides policy analysis and guidance on the use of market-based instruments and the complex links between water security and other policy objectives, such as food security, energy security, climate mitigation and biodiversity protection.
Water resources allocation determines who is able to use water resources, how, when and where. It directly affects the value (economic, ecological, socio-cultural) that individuals and society obtain from water resources. This report overviews how allocation works in a range of countries and how the performance of allocation arrangements can be improved to adjust to changing conditions.
Capturing information from 27 OECD countries and key partner economies, the report presents key findings from the OECD Survey of Water Resources Allocation and case studies of successful allocation reform. It provides practical policy guidance for water allocation in the form of a "health check", which can be used to assess the performance of current arrangements and manage the transition to improved regimes.
In the former Soviet Union, extensive networks were constructed to supply urban populations with clean, safe water. However, the networks were not well designed and this resulted in low quality water services and high operation and maintenance costs. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the condition of water infrastructure deteriorated more dramatically following sharp decreases in public budgets and the continued tradition of providing water services virtually free of charge. Without urgent action, the quality of services will continue to worsen and, in some of the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union, may even collapse, with serious consequences for human health and economic activity.
This volume analyses the causes underlying this dire situation and presents recommendations for addressing it which were adopted at a meeting of Economic/Finance and Environment Ministers held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in October 2000. The meeting was organized within the framework of the EAP Task Force, with its Secretariat at OECD, and involved key stakeholders from the governmental and non-governmental sectors. The EAP Task Force will implement a focused programme of work guided by the main recommendations agreed by participants.
This report examines the progress made in water management in OECD countries in the light of the objectives of Agenda 21. It presents the experience of the OECD programme of environmental performance reviews and focuses on issues of sustainable use of water resources, pollution control and water economics.
Environmental performance reviews of Australia, Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States have already been published.
This report assesses the extent to which Dutch water governance is fit for future challenges and sketches an agenda for the reform of water policies in the Netherlands. It builds on a one-year policy dialogue with over 100 Dutch stakeholders, supported by robust analytical work and drawing on international best practice.
This report diagnoses the main governance and financing challenges to private sector participation in the water supply and wastewater sector of Tunisia, and provides ways forward to address these challenges. It been developed as part of a water policy dialogue conducted by the OECD jointly with the Global Water Partnership-Mediterranean (GWP-Med) in the context of the project labelled by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) "Governance and Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector", with the support of the FEMIP Trust Fund of the European Investment Bank.