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Rising public health care spending remains a problem in virtually all OECD and EU member countries. As a consequence, there is growing interest in policies that will ease this pressure through improved health system performance. This report examines selected policies that may help countries better achieve the goal of improved health system efficiency and thus better value for money. Drawing on multinational data sets and case studies, it examines a range policy instruments. These include: the role of competition in health markets; the scope for improving care coordination; better pharmaceutical pricing policies; greater quality control supported by stronger information and communication technology in health care; and increased cost sharing.
Achieving Financial Stability in Asia sets out to identify the elements which could restore confidence to the countries of the region and stabilise financial flows on a global basis. Thus, measures must be taken which include improving public and corporate governance, strengthening democracy and improving the efficiency of regulatory institutions. At the same time, emerging economies ought to be given a greater measure of participation in international regulatory bodies, so that any solutions proposed to dampen the volatility of financial flows might take their interests and opinions into account. This book reflects the contributions to the fifth edition of the International Forum on Asian Perspectives, which was held in Paris in June 1999. The Forum was created by the Asian Development Bank and the OECD Development Centre as an annual meeting place of ideas and strategies from Asian 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 Asia. 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.
With an electricity system defined by high shares of hydropower, large capacity for interconnection with its neighbours and low carbon intensity, Switzerland is well positioned to attain its objective of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. However, the exact pathway remains the subject of discussion. First, what should the shares of nuclear energy and variable renewable energies such as solar PV and wind be in the energy mix? Second, what degree of electricity trade should Switzerland have with its European neighbours?
New system modelling of different energy policy choices with the Nuclear Energy Agency’s POSY model shows that all considered scenarios are technically feasible. However, relying on variable renewables alone or decoupling Switzerland from neighbouring countries could increase total system costs by up to 250%. Instead, continuing to operate Switzerland’s newest nuclear power plants alongside existing hydropower resources, while maintaining interconnection capacity at current levels, emerges as the most cost-effective option to achieve net zero emissions in 2050. Ample data and technical documentation of a least-cost mixed integer (MILP) modelling with hourly resolution are also provided in order to allow replication, extension and discussion of this study’s findings
Achieving Net Zero Electricity Sectors in G7 Members is a new report by the International Energy Agency that provides a roadmap to driving down CO2 emissions from electricity generation to net zero by 2035, building on analysis in Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector.
The new report was requested by the United Kingdom, under its G7 Presidency, and followed the G7 leaders’ commitment in June 2021 to reach “an overwhelmingly decarbonised” power system in the 2030s and net zero emissions across their economies no later than 2050. It is designed to inform policy makers, industry, investors and citizens in advance of the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow that begins at the end of October 2021.
Starting from recent progress and the current state of play of electricity in the G7, the report analyses the steps needed to achieve net zero emissions from electricity, and considers the wider implications for energy security, employment and affordability. It identifies key milestones, emerging challenges and opportunities for innovation.
The report also underscores how G7 members can foster innovation through international collaboration and, as first movers, lower the cost of technologies for other countries while maintaining electricity security and placing people at the centre of clean energy transitions.
Achieving Net Zero Heavy Industry Sectors in G7 Members is a new report by the International Energy Agency that focuses on the implementation of policies aimed at drastically lowering CO2 emissions from heavy industries in the G7 and beyond. This work, requested by Germany’s 2022 G7 Presidency, builds on analysis from the IEA’s Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector. It follows Achieving Net Zero Electricity Sectors in G7 Members, produced as an input to the UK’s G7 Presidency in 2021.This report focuses on two key areas for achieving net zero heavy industry sectors in G7 members, both of which are priority areas for Germany’s 2022 G7 Presidency. The first is a toolbox of policies and financing mechanisms to initiate and sustain the industry sector transition. The second is a series of common and practicable definitions of what constitutes near zero emission steel and cement production, a key step to establishing future policy mechanisms, irrespective of the exact mitigation pathway or the specific technologies chosen. The report is designed to inform policy makers, material producers and consumers, investors, leading sectoral initiatives and the research community in the lead up to the G7 Climate and Energy Ministerial in May 2022, and beyond.
Agility is a tool that can help governments to not only maintain but even improve public services in a time of fiscal consolidation. Financial uncertainty is not the only challenge governments face today. Changing demographics, globalisation, climate change, risk of potential large-scale disasters are among the many others. Agility can help governments meet these challenges as well. It's also not enough to be "agile". Governments must be quick and responsive in a strategic way. This means being aware of emerging opportunities, being able to make tough collective decisions and stick to them, and mobilising appropriate financial and human resources rapidly and efficiently to where/when they are needed most. This publication is supports reforms towards greater strategic agility in the public sector including the use of budgeting policy levers, human resource management strategies and ICTs. It presents, in a sense, a toolkit for reform, together with a broader framework for action, taking into account the enabling factors and potential risks that may occur. This report is also an attempt to show that the public sector has the capacity to reinvent itself during difficult times and that large public sector organisations are able to take on the challenge.
Achieving sustainable, equitable and resilient societies is humankind’s challenge for the 21st century. In pursuit of this ambition, the international development community needs a shared, universal framework, within which to work more closely together. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the obvious answer, but a number of technical, political and organisational challenges prevent development co-operation providers from using them as their common results framework. Based on seven case studies, this publication identifies two critical factors and one game changer that can help overcome those challenges. First, country leadership needs to be supported by the international community. Second, development partners need to change their set-ups in order to deliver on the SDGs. Finally, by forcing governments and development partners to reset their long-term strategies and rethink their internal systems, the COVID-19 pandemic provides them with a rare opportunity to use the SDG framework collectively as a roadmap to recovery: this can be a game changer.
This study provides a review of the food and agricultural sector in Ukraine. It assesses the current status of the food and agricultural sector with special reference to the agricultural policy regime and the form and level of government support to the sector. The paper reviews the sector’s readiness to compete on open global markets for food and agricultural products. Given the importance and sensitivity of the food and agriculture sector in the country, the report highlights a number of critical issues for the Ukrainian government to address. The report goes beyond the narrower focus of the agricultural policies and reviews the status of current rural physical and social infrastructure and issues of rural poverty.
The Executive Summary highlights policy recommendations for Ukrainian policymakers, while the individual chapters provide technical analysis on key policy issues.
Wales (United Kingdom) is on the path to transform the way children learn, with a new curriculum aimed to prepare its children and young people to thrive at school and beyond. The new curriculum for Wales intends to create a better learning experience for students, to engage teachers’ professionalism, and to contribute to the overall improvement of Welsh education. An education policy is only as good as its implementation, however, and Wales turned to the OECD for advice on the next steps to implement the curriculum. This report analyses the progress made with the new curriculum since 2016, and offers suggestions on the actions Wales should take to ready the system for further development and implementation. The analysis looks at the four pillars of implementation — curriculum policy design, stakeholders' engagement, policy context and implementation strategy — and builds upon the literature and experiences of OECD countries to provide tailored advice to Wales. In return, the report holds value not only for Wales, but also for other education systems across the OECD looking to implement a curriculum or to enhance their implementation processes altogether.
Climate policy raises a number of challenges for the energy sector, the most significant being the transition from a high to a low-CO2 energy path in a few decades. Act Locally, Trade Globally seeks to provide a complete picture of the future role of emissions trading in climate policy and the energy sector. It offers an overview of existing trading systems, their mechanisms, and looks into the future of the instrument for limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
In order to provide experts with a forum to present and discuss developments in the field of partitioning and transmutation (P&T), the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has been organising, since 1990, a series of biennial information exchange meetings on actinide and fission product P&T. These proceedings contain all the technical papers presented at the 11th Information Exchange Meeting, which was held on 1-4 November 2010 in San Francisco, California, USA. The meeting covered national programmes on P&T; fuel cycle strategies and transition scenarios; waste forms and geological disposal; transmutation fuels and targets; pyro and aqueous processes; transmutation physics and materials; and transmutation system design, performance and safety.
Climate change is an increasing concern across the world. In 1997, a number of countries, including most OECD countries, agreed the Kyoto Protocol, which sets targets for future emissions of greenhouse gases that drive climate change. But the Kyoto Protocol left many decisions to be made, and while these are being discussed the clock ticks and the date for meeting the targets draws closer. Uncertainties are even larger as to policy requirements over the longer term. The Kyoto targets in themselves will do little to avert climate change but are best seen as a first step towards ambitious worldwide action. This puts the focus on how to achieve worldwide consensus for taking action and the economic impacts such action may have. Whatever action is taken, and on the basis of available scientific evidence, some climate change may take place in any case, raising questions about its impacts and how best to adjust.
What are the main outstanding issues concerning the Kyoto Protocol? What will it cost to implement the Protocol? How can it be done so as to minimise costs? How could economic burdens be shared among countries so as to achieve broad consensus for global action? What will be the impact of such climate change as may happen and how should policy be set so as to smooth adjustment? This publication presents analysis which bears on the above questions as well as others in the climate change debate. It does not purport to have the final answers, but is aimed to inform a major debate.
Taxation is at the core of countries' sovereignty, but in recent years, multinational companies have avoided taxation in their home countries by pushing activities abroad to low or no tax jurisdictions. The G20 asked OECD to address this growing problem by creating this action plan to address base erosion and profit shifting. This plan identifies a series of domestic and international actions to address the problem and sets timelines for the implementation.
This report on the recent Australian experience with activation policies contains valuable lessons for other countries that need to improve the effectiveness of employment services and control benefit expenditure. It provides overview and assessment of labour market policies in Australia including the main institutions, benefit system, training programmes, employment incentives, and disability employment assistance.
Australia is unique among OECD countries in that its mainstream employment services are all delivered by over 100 for-profit and non-profit providers competing in a “quasi-market”, with their operations financed by service fees, employment outcome payments, and a special fund for measures that tackle jobseekers’ barriers to employment. In most other OECD countries, these services are delivered by the Public Employment Service. In the mid 2000s, several benefits previously paid without a job-search requirement were closed or reformed, bringing more people into the effective labour force.
Australia now has one of the highest employment rates in the OECD and this report concludes that its activation system deserves some of the credit for this relatively good performance. The Job Services Australia model, introduced in 2009, reinforced the focus on employment outcomes for highly-disadvantaged groups. This report assesses the latest model for activation and puts forward some recommendations to improve its effectiveness.
This publication describes the activities of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport during 1997 and sets out the Resolutions and Reports approved by the Council of Ministers of Transport during that year. The organisation chart of the Conference is also given at the end of this volume.
This publication describes the activities of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport during 1998 and sets out the Resolutions and Reports approved by the Council of Ministers of Transport during that year. The organisation chart of the Conference is also given at the end of this volume.
This publication describes the activities of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport during 1999 and sets out the Resolutions and Reports approved by the Council of Ministers of Transport during that year. The organisation chart of the Conference is also given at the end of this volume.
This publication describes the activities of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport during 2000 and sets out the Resolutions and Reports approved by the Council of Ministers of Transport during that year. The organisation chart of the Conference is also given at the end of this volume.