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Global education systems face an array of huge challenges, including question marks over how to remain relevant in a fast-changing world. This report Teaching for the Future: Global Engagement, Sustainability and Digital Skills outlines the challenges and key trends for teaching and schools, and sets out ambitious proposals to improve education standards to ensure learning caters to the needs of all students regardless of background. The report was used as the basis to launch discussions about the state of global education at the International Summit on the Teaching Profession held in Washington D.C., April 2023. The summit brought together education ministers, union leaders and other representatives from the teaching profession from high-performing and improving education systems to review the quality of teaching and learning across the world. Topics discussed included the future of learning and ways to radically reimagine how education systems function in the decades to come; analysis of how to attract and support the development of high-quality teachers and teaching practices in the age of digitalisation; and ways to support the teaching of global competencies in schools, and how to promote equitable and inclusive learning environments for all.

This annual publication provides details of taxes paid on wages in OECD countries. This year’s edition focuses on the impact of recent inflation on labour taxation in the OECD and how countries adjust their tax systems in response. For the year 2022, the report also examines personal income taxes and social security contributions paid by employees, social security contributions and payroll taxes paid by employers, and cash benefits received by workers. It illustrates how these taxes and benefits are calculated in each member country and examines how they impact household incomes. The results also enable quantitative cross-country comparisons of labour cost levels and the overall tax and benefit position of single persons and families on different levels of earnings. The publication shows average and marginal effective tax rates on labour costs for eight different household types, which vary by income level and household composition (single persons, single parents, one or two earner couples with or without children). The average tax rates measure the part of gross wage earnings or labour costs taken in tax and social security contributions, both before and after cash benefits, and the marginal tax rates the part of a small increase of gross earnings or labour costs that is paid in these levies.

Latvia’s current National Development Plan, approved in 2020, sets out a clear vision for the Latvian justice system by 2027. This includes establishing international standards and good practices in the development of national policies to build a child-friendly justice system. This report assesses the benefits of implementing the Barnahus model in Latvia as a child-friendly and interagency one-stop shop to support children exposed to violence or abuse as well as those who have witnessed violence. It examines a whole-of-state approach to promote a justice system that is more people- and child-friendly, incorporating sound governance mechanisms. This report provides recommendations for delivering more targeted and accessible child-friendly justice services in Latvia, as well as different approaches used in OECD Member and partner countries to close justice inequality gaps. 

The iron and steel sector accounts for almost 8% of global emissions, making it one of the highest emitting industry sectors with around 30% of industrial carbon emissions. Decarbonising the steel sector is therefore key to achieving climate goals. This report, prepared for the 2023 Japanese G7 Presidency, demonstrates that considering the heterogeneity of steel industries is vital for reaching climate goals and for a just and inclusive transition to a low-carbon future. The report maps the heterogeneity of global steel industries, highlighting the differences between them in key areas relevant to decarbonisation. Additionally, it examines how these differences should be considered when developing definitions for near-zero and low-emissions steel production, as well as emissions measurement methodologies and data collection frameworks.

This report is the first country review undertaken as part of the OECD work on LGBTI+ inclusion. It explores legal and policy progress towards LGBTI+ equality in Germany at both the national and subnational levels, and identifies good practices. The report first investigates the life situation of LGBTI+ Germans by presenting the most up-to-date data on the share of Germans who self-identify as LGBTI+, evaluating the extent to which LGBTI+ Germans face discrimination and violence, and assessing how this population fares in terms of well-being, mental and physical health. The report then examines whether laws critical to achieving LGBTI+ equality have been passed and how LGBTI+ equality in Germany could be further improved through legislation. Finally, beyond laws, the report focuses on policy achievements towards LGBTI+ equality, by distinguishing between remedial policies, aimed at enforcing antidiscrimination and anti-violence laws, and preventive policies, aimed at fostering a culture of equal treatment of LGBTI+ individuals at school, in the workplace, and in healthcare.

With more chronic conditions and an ageing population, a growing share of the population will need end-of-life care, reaching close to 10 million people by 2050. While end-of-life care services help improve quality of life through relieving pain and other symptoms, currently, there are substantial gaps in the provision of services. More than half of deaths still occur in hospital across OECD countries, despite home generally being the preferred place of death, because of lack of appropriate services and poor care co-ordination. There are marked inequalities in access with people from higher education twice as likely to receive end-of-life care services than those with low education. Planning, recording of wishes and shared decision-making fall short of what is desirable, with only one-quarter of wishes being recorded in the form of advance directives. People at the end of life do not always receive appropriate symptom relief, while others suffer from overtreatment. This report suggests avenues to improve care for the dying by enhancing measurement and monitoring of quality and rethinking funding and governance models of care. End-of-life care could also be improved by increasing knowledge among health care staff across different care settings, and making communication around the topic more person-centred.

This report presents a case study of applying the OECD anticipatory innovation governance framework to develop and manage anticipatory innovation ecosystems as vehicles for knowledge generation, innovation governance and co-ordinated action to achieve policy goals. Part I establishes the case for anticipatory innovation ecosystems and sets out how they can be governed through a multi-level approach. In Part II, opportunities and challenges for applying this approach in the Latvian context are identified, and recommendations are made for developing anticipatory innovation ecosystems in Latvia.

The use of telemedicine was quite limited in most OECD countries before the COVID-19 pandemic, held back by regulatory barriers and hesitancy from patients and providers. In early 2020, as COVID-19 massively disrupted in-person care, governments moved quickly to promote the use of telemedicine. The number of teleconsultations skyrocketed, playing a vital role in maintaining access to care, but only partly offsetting reductions in in-person care. This report provides an overview of the use of telemedicine in OECD countries, describing how governments scaled up remote care during the pandemic and exploring the impact that this massive shift to remote care has had on health care system performance. Telemedicine may be here to stay, but questions remain concerning how to regulate its use, how to pay for it, how to integrate it with in-person care, and how to make sure that it constitutes good value for money for all. This report puts forth priorities for policy makers to inform the discussion and to promote the best use of remote care services in the future.

Al igual que en el resto de los países de América Latina, la transición verde traerá grandes desafíos en Colombia, pero también la oportunidad de construir un nuevo modelo de desarrollo que sea más sostenible, inclusivo y que genere mayor valor agregado. Por un lado, este proceso involucrará la transformación del aparato productivo y, en particular, la renovación de varios sectores económicos para mitigar sus emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero (GEI). Por otro lado, la transición verde demandará la creación de nuevas prácticas en materia de adaptación para fortalecer la resiliencia del país ante eventos climáticos extremos. La aprobación de la Ley 2169 de 2021 en Colombia se une a una serie de esfuerzos del país para impulsar el progreso de la transición verde y hacer frente al cambio climático. Esta ley tiene como objetivo promover el desarrollo bajo en carbono del país mediante el establecimiento de metas y medidas mínimas en materia de carbono-neutralidad y resiliencia climática. Anticipar las futuras disrupciones en el mercado laboral como consecuencia de la transformación del aparato productivo a lo largo de la transición verde es clave para asegurar que dicha transición no solo sea sostenible sino también justa e inclusiva.

The past decade has seen increasing international recognition of civic space as a cornerstone of functioning democracies, alongside efforts to promote and protect it. Countries that foster civic space are better placed to reap the many benefits of higher levels of citizen engagement, strengthened transparency and accountability, and empowered citizens and civil society. In the longer term, a vibrant civic space can help to improve government effectiveness and responsiveness, contribute to more citizen-centred policies, and boost social cohesion. This first OECD comparative report on civic space offers a baseline of data from 33 OECD Members and 19 non-Members and a nuanced overview of the different dimensions of civic space, with a focus on civic freedoms, media freedoms, civic space in the digital age, and the enabling environment for civil society. It provides an exhaustive review of legal frameworks, policies, strategies, and institutional arrangements, in addition to implementation gaps, trends and good practices. The analysis is complemented by a review of international standards and guidance, in addition to data and analysis from civil society and other stakeholders.

Vocational education and training (VET) is an important part of education systems around the world. VET systems differ widely between countries in how programmes are designed and delivered. Moreover, countries differ in terms of the types of providers that deliver VET. This report looks at the VET provider landscape in Australia, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. It provides insights into the number of different providers by country, their focus areas and target populations. It describes how providers are different and how they overlap, as well as structures and initiatives to foster co-ordination between them.

The OECD “Resource Efficiency and Circular Economy” (RE-CIRCLE) project provides policy guidance on resource efficiency and the transition to a circular economy. The RE-CIRCLE project is structured around two complementary work packages toward sound evidence-based policy recommendations. It aims to identify and quantify the impact of resource-efficient, circular economy policies to guide a range of stakeholders in OECD member countries and emerging market economies through quantitative and qualitative analysis. The project is embedded in on-going work by the OECD on resource efficiency and the transition to a circular economy. This paper provides policy recommendations stemming from the OECD’s work on the RE-CIRCLE project as well as from some of the major other recent OECD publications that directly relate to the topic.

Heat pumps, powered by low-emissions electricity, are the central technology in the global transition to secure and sustainable heating. This report, provides an outlook for heat pumps, identifying key opportunities to accelerate their deployment. It also highlights the major barriers and policy solutions, and explores the implications of an accelerated uptake of heat pumps for energy security, consumers’ energy bills, employment and efforts to tackle climate change.Around 10% of space heating needs globally were met by heat pumps in 2021, but the pace of installation is growing rapidly with sales at record levels. Government policy support is needed, though, to help consumers overcome heat pumps’ higher upfront costs relative to alternatives. Financial incentives for heat pumps are already available in over 30 countries, which together cover more than 70% of heating demand today. The IEA estimates heat pumps globally have the potential to reduce global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by at least 500 million tonnes in 2030 – equal to the annual CO2 emissions of all cars in Europe today.

This report discusses how steering innovation investment in public sector organisations through a portfolio approach can help governments respond to the multi-faceted challenges they face. Portfolio management is a well-known device in the financial sector, allowing for dynamic decision-making processes involving regular reviews of activity and ensuring a coherent distribution of resources among strategic options. The report illustrates how this approach can be applied by public sector organisations to reap a variety of benefits, including avoiding innovation fragmentation and single-point solutionism; tackling risk aversion and learning at the portfolio level; identifying synergies among projects and activities; building value chains among projects and programmes; and layering activities connected to complex reforms. The report also discusses the type of innovation investments or facets a portfolio can help to steer and what these look like in practice.

This report describes the structure of the FinTech sector in the Czech Republic and the associated regulatory and supervisory frameworks. It analyses the enabling conditions for FinTech innovation as well as potential hurdles. The findings are based on responses from Czech FinTechs to an OECD survey which assessed market innovations, opportunities and obstacles, the access to and use of data, and the potential benefits of establishing a regulatory sandbox.

The Climate Action Monitor 2022 updates the International Programme for Action on Climate (IPAC) annual comprehensive assessment of country progress towards net-zero goals and the Paris Agreement commitments. This year's edition draws on two new sets of indicators developed by IPAC on climate-related hazards and climate action: climate hazard and exposure indicators and the climate actions and policies measurement framework. These indicators provide granular evidence that although climate action and policies are expanding across the world, government ambition must increase significantly to deal with the range of climate risks faced globally and affecting people's livelihoods.