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Economic integration in West Africa is a major political objective for all the States in the region and is supported by the main economic players in the region. The weight of Nigeria -- which accounts for 50% of the regional economy -- the many constraints to formal trade, linguistic barriers, these all raise as many hopes as fears among the economic players in neighbouring countries with respect to their future relations with this powerful neighbour.
Prospects for Trade between Nigeria and its Neighbours, a study undertaken by the Laboratoire d’Analyse Regional et d’Expertise Sociale (LARES) in Cotonou, commissioned by the Club du Sahel, examines the issues. It describes the still largely informal trade in the region, analysing constraints to its growth and some possible future developments.
Presented as a series of concise, well documented "fact sheets", this study will be of interest to those in both public and private spheres who believe that regional trade development is a necessary response to globalisation. Prospects for Trade between Nigeria and its Neighbours has formed the basis of a workshop organised by the Club du Sahel and the West African Enterprise Network for English and French entrepreneurs in December 2000 in Cotonou, Benin.
This book provides a description of private pension systems in selected OECD countries as well as information on administrative costs and related policy issues.
Sustainable development involves linking the economic, social and environmental objectives of societies in a balanced way. It stresses the importance of taking a broader view of what human welfare entails, of using a long-term perspective about the consequences of today's activities, and of recognising the global nature of many of the most pressing challenges facing societies. OECD countries committed themselves to sustainable development at the 1992 Rio Conference on Environment and Development. However, action to meet these commitments remains slow. This report identifies some of the main barriers -- conceptual and practical -- that stand in the way of progress, and some of the areas where concrete government actions will allow a better integration of environmental, economic and social goals. Particular focus is placed on how the use of the price system, reform of governments' decision-making processes, technology policies, and international trade and investment may each contribute to removing incentives to unsustainable resource depletion and environmental degradation. Recommendations in each of these areas are presented in this Report, and then applied to two areas -- climate change and natural resource management -- where the risks of non-sustainability appear to be highest.
How can road administrations lift their performance in managing the road network? How does that management contribute to the development of efficient transport systems? What are some common indicators/criteria that could be developed for OECD countries? What are the data needs and the information network required to support these indicators?
The analysis of performance using key indicators provides road administrations with a basis for redefining their activities. This report does not define a vision for adoption in all countries. Rather, the results should serve as a framework for evaluating the role and performance of road administrations in OECD countries.
Primary commodities dominate African exports, yet these products are extremely vulnerable to variations in weather conditions, world demand and prices. If the continent is to obtain optimum benefit from the integration and opening of the world economy, this heavy reliance on primary products must be reduced. There is, thus, a new and important role for African countries’ manufacturing industries. The papers in this volume address three important issues: the role of exchange-rate policy in enhancing the competitiveness of African manufactured exports; the steps that can be taken to improve production efficiency; and the role of institutional and structural reforms in promoting competitiveness in manufacturing and in improving Africa’s attractiveness to foreign direct investment. An Epilogue evaluates progress and developments since the conference which gave rise to this volume was held.
Many governments of OECD Member countries are developing new public sector leadership models. This is the first report to examine key leadership issues across OECD Member countries, including the strategies and practices governments are adopting, and the lessons from country experiences so far.
Developing countries, with the support of multilateral institutions, the bilateral development assistance community and civil society organisations, are focusing as never before on the development priority of reducing poverty by half by 2015. Country-led and country-owned poverty reduction strategies focusing on local needs and priorities as determined by stakeholders are now the focus of all development assistance efforts. The DAC Guidelines on Poverty Reduction provide practical information about the nature of poverty and best practice approaches, policies, instruments and channels for tackling it. They also break new ground in setting out the parameters for building effective partnerships with governments, civil society, and other development actors, and in describing how institutional change and development within bilateral agencies themselves could be undertaken for mainstreaming poverty reduction, partnership and policy coherence.
The purchasing power parities and real expenditures contained in this publication cover 43 countries including the 30 OECD Member countries, the 13 EU candidate countries, Israel and the Russian Federation. They are based on price and expenditure data for 1999 and have been calculated using the EKS aggregation method. International comparisons of price levels and real GDP can be made using the price and volume measures presented in this publication.
Die Bundesrepublik räumt Entwicklungsfragen einen hohen Stellenwert auf ihrer nationalen Politikagenda ein. Mit dem Aktionsprogramm 2015, das die weltweite Reduzierung der Armut zu einem wichtigen Bestandteil der gesamten staatlichen Politikgestaltung und einer überwölbenden Aufgabe der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit erklärt, wurde die Armutsbekämpfung zu einer klaren Priorität erhoben. Nach Japan und den USA ist die Bundesrepublik der drittgrößte Geber unter den DAC-Mitgliedsländern. In den letzten drei Jahren wurden eine Reihe organisatorischer Veränderungen mit dem Ziel vorgenommen, die Kohäsion der deutschen EZ-Einrichtungen zu stärken, sie zu rationalisieren und ihre operationelle Effizienz zu steigern. Das hat zu einer Verschlankung der organisatorischen Strukturen geführt und die Funktionsweise des deutschen EZ-Systems insgesamt weiter vereinfacht.
This publication describes the OECD PISA 2000 international database. The PISA 2000 database comprises micro-level data on student performance for 32 countries collected in 2000 and processed during the second half of 2000 and 2001, together with students' responses to the questionnaires and the test questions. The first results were released in December 2001 and presented in the publication Knowledge and Skills for Life: First Results of PISA 2000 (OECD, 2001). The purpose of this publication is to provide all the information required to understand the PISA 2000 database and perform analyses in accordance with the complex methodologies used to collect and process the data. It does not provide detailed information regarding these methods but rather directs readers to the publications which cover these aspects. The PISA 2000 database can be downloaded from www.pisa.oecd.org
Moving people and freight in an environmentally sustainable manner will be one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century. Overall, insufficient progress has been made so far towards achieving environmental sustainability for the transport sector. A new target-oriented approach is needed that places environment and health at the top of the policy agenda for transport and related sectors, at international, national and local levels. The OECD’s Working Group on Transport recently concluded a five-year work programme with the development of Guidelines for Environmentally Sustainable Transport (EST) and supporting analytical reports, endorsed by OECD Environment Ministers at their meeting in Paris on 16 May 2001.
The Forum approved policy recommendations that reflect the shared experience of Member countries of the OECD and the Organization of American States. The agreed policy recommendations list key principles and crucial factors in the three following key areas of good governance:
- Ensuring impartiality in the decision-making process by a credible conflict-of-interest policy.
- Increasing transparency in the preparation and execution of the budget.
- Promoting freedom of information, consultation and participation of citizens in the formulation and implementation of public policies.
In addition, country papers provide practical solutions adapted to their particular administrative environments for policy-makers and a demanding civil society.
Although the recycling of plutonium as thermal mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in pressurised water reactors (PWRs) is now well-established on a commercial scale, many physics questions remain. The main question addressed in this report is the number of times plutonium can effectively be recycled in a PWR.
This report describes in particular an exercise based on a realistic, multiple-recycle scenario, which followed plutonium through five generations of recycling in a PWR. It considered both a standard PWR design currently in use and a highly moderated design. The latter is a possible option for a dedicated, MOX-fuelled PWR in which it would be possible to optimise the moderation for plutonium. The study of these two designs in parallel has provided a better understanding of their relative merits, as well as insight into the limitations of multiple recycling and the long-term toxicity of fission products and actinides.
This brochure is published within the framework of the activities of the Scheme for the Application of International Standards for Fruit and Vegetables set up by OECD in 1962. It comprises comments and illustrations to facilitate the common interpretation of standards in force and is therefore a valuable tool for both the Inspection Authorities and professional bodies responsible for the application of standards or interested in the international trade in these products.
This paper examines the practice of peer review and the related effect of peer pressure in the context of international organisations, particularly the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It outlines the main features of these two concepts and attempts to establish a model based on the different peer review mechanisms used at OECD. While there are other documents available that list the peer reviews of the OECD, this paper will provide an analysis of the practice. Annex B describes some OECD peer reviews.
The PISA 2000 Technical Report describes the complex methodology underlying PISA 2000, along with additional features related to the implementation of the project at a level of detail that allows researchers to understand and replicate its analyses. It presents information on the test and sample design, methodologies used to analyse the data, technical features of the project and quality control mechanisms.
This document presents the final report of the OECD survey to collect information on member countries’ data requirements for persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic (PBT) pesticides and approaches to assessing such pesticides. The purpose of the survey was to provide a clear understanding of the data and information that are used by pesticide regulators to determine the risks associated with low-dose exposure to PBT pesticides. It was also undertaken with a view to developing a harmonised OECD approach for assessing such risks.
The OECD/NEA Working Party on the Physics of Plutonium Fuels and Innovative Fuel Cycles (WPPR) conducted a physics code benchmark test for the recycling of plutonium as PuO2/UO2 mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel in boiling water reactors (BWRs) compared to pressurised water reactors (PWRs). This volume reports on the benchmark results and conclusions that can be drawn from it.
Sustaining the fight against global poverty will be possible only if the "wider civil society", i.e. citizens in richer countries, actively and critically support international development co-operation efforts. The willingness undoubtedly exists: McDonnell, Solignac Lecomte and Wegimont (2003) found that public support in OECD DAC member countries for helping poor countries has remained consistently high for almost two decades. There is no aid fatigue. One indication is that donations from the public to development and emergency NGOs have been steadily increasing, although mostly in reaction to emergencies and natural disasters in developing countries. There is concern among the public about aid effectiveness, but it exists alongside continued high support for aid.
However, people’s understanding of poverty and development issues remains very shallow. Similarly, public awareness about official development assistance (ODA) and development co-operation policies is low. Awareness does increase significantly as a result of global education, awareness raising campaigns and public debate, but the media remain a primary source of information about developing countries. However, there is some evidence of scepticism about the nature of the information. Against this background, official expenditure on global education and on information about national aid programmes, although it has been increasing in some OECD countries, remains very low. In particular, the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals so far largely remains an untapped opportunity to peg more vigorous efforts to inform and engage the public. The global anti-poverty consensus they are spearheading has hardly trickled down to national public debates, which remain (with a few noticeable exceptions) rather rare and unsophisticated.
Still available evidence shows that citizens in OECD DAC member countries want more solidarity and justice in the world. They support international development co-operation, and if they were more and better informed, if their capacity to critically engage in the policy debate was stronger, they could be a precious constituency for its reform and improvement. There lies an opportunity for governments, especially those that have pledged to increase their ODA, to kick-start a virtuous circle of transparency and reform, and effectively rise to the challenge of global poverty reduction.
Investment in health is a strategically important and often underestimated component of economic development. This study sets out a systematic approach to improving health in poor countries. For emerging countries, substantially improved health outcomes are a prerequisite to breaking out of the poverty cycle. This book on poverty and health, jointly published by the OECD and WHO, sets out the essential components of a broad-scope “pro-poor” health approach for action within the health system and beyond it. It is for development practitioners in the area of health issues.