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This "Red Book", jointly prepared every two years by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency, is the foremost world reference on uranium. It is based on official information from 49 countries and includes compilations of statistics on resources, exploration, production and demand as of 1 January 1999. It provides substantial new information from all of the major uranium producing centres in Africa, Australia, Eastern Europe, North America and the New Independent States. It also contains an international expert analysis of industry statistics and world-wide projections of nuclear energy growth, uranium requirements and uranium supply.

This edition of the  "Red Book", jointly prepared by the Nuclear Energy Agency of the OECD and the International Atomic Energy Agency, is produced every two years, is based on official information from 59 countries and includes compilations of statistics on resources, exploration, production and demand as of 1 January 1997. It provides substantial new information from all of the major uranium producing centres in Africa, Australia, Eastern Europe, North America and the New Independent States, including the first-ever official reports on uranium production in Estonia, Mongolia, the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan. It also contains an international expert analysis of industry statistics and worldwide projections of nuclear energy growth, uranium requirements and uranium supply.

This review of Mexico’s Better Schools Programme was conducted in 2012 by the OECD Centre for Effective Learning Environments (CELE). In 2008, the federal government created the Programme to repair and improve the physical infrastructure of schools for basic education throughout Mexico. A key characteristic of the programme is social participation and the engagement of the each school community. The review team’s recommendations offer lessons to all governments investing in educational infrastructure to improve the quality of education.

This second edition reflects the wealth of practical experience gained by 47 countries in relation to voluntary disclosure programmes. In addition, the guidance on the design and implementation of the programmes has been updated, particularly taking into account the views of private client advisers.

As digital transformation has accelerated, the e-commerce landscape has become increasingly dynamic. New players have emerged at the same time that established actors have taken on new roles; some barriers to e-commerce at the firm, individual and country levels have been overcome, while other barriers have emerged. Innovative business models have transformed buyer-seller relationships and pushed out the frontier of what is possible to buy and sell online. This report analyses new and emerging e-commerce business models, examines e-commerce trends along a range of dimensions, and offers new insights on the policies needed to exploit the opportunities and mitigate the challenges of unlocking the potential of e-commerce for all.

Subnational governments carry out more than 60% of total public procurement in OECD countries. As such, public procurement can offer a powerful tool for cities to boost local growth and advance their strategic priorities, ranging from innovation and inclusion to the transition to a low-carbon economy. Bratislava, the most populated and richest municipality in the Slovak Republic, carried out 39% of its expenditures through public procurement in 2019. The COVID-19 crisis has enhanced both the urgency and the opportunity to improve the city's procurement system and to rethink "what" and "how" to procure. In this context, Bratislava is developing new directives to make its procurement processes more efficient. This report offers recommendations on how Bratislava can use public procurement strategically to identify value-for-money solutions, foster competition, and promote sustainable urban development. The report also includes a concrete case study on Bratislava’s public procurement for street lighting, which provides methodological guidance on the analysis of needs, market engagement, and tender design.

Demographic pressure and the youth bulge in the developing world pose a major employment challenge. This situation is exacerbated by insufficient job creation, scarce formal wage employment opportunities and vulnerability in the workplace. For these reasons, fostering youth entrepreneurship has gained importance in the global and national development policy agenda. This report aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the role of youth entrepreneurship in generating employment in developing countries. It is based on the analysis of mixed labour force and enterprise surveys conducted in Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Peru and Viet Nam, as well as evidence on the impact of entrepreneurship programmes. This report’s findings add to the global debate on youth entrepreneurship in three important ways. First, it constitutes an unprecedented effort to capture the real situations and multiple faces of young entrepreneurs in selected developing countries. Second, it provides new empirical evidence on the determinants of youth entrepreneurial performance. Third, it proposes a policy roadmap based on lessons learned from recent meta-analyses of the effectiveness of entrepreneurship programmes.

The German vocational education and training (VET) system is admired around the world for its ability to prepare young people for skilled employment. In Germany, VET smooths transitions into work and is closely aligned with labour market demand. This report focuses on an unprecedented test of the German VET system: how to respond to the significant increase in migrants who arrived in the country in 2015-16. The study explores both the opportunities and the challenges presented by migration. Germany has already devoted significant attention to VET as a mechanism for enabling integration – and for good reason. Work-based learning assists integration because it demonstrably gives learners skills that employers want in real-world settings. The report assesses the barriers faced by learners in their journeys into and through VET, exploring how such challenges can be addressed. In addition, the study looks at system-wide issues in relation to how VET provision and integration policy is governed. Lastly, it explores opportunities for increased flexibility in the German VET system of relevance to all youth at risk of not succeeding in VET. In responding to migrant needs, German VET can become more inclusive without reducing quality.

Distributed energy resources (DERs) are small-scale energy resources usually situated near sites of electricity use, such as rooftop solar panels and battery storage. Their rapid expansion is transforming not only the way electricity is generated, but also how it is traded, delivered and consumed.Accordingly, DERs can create new power system opportunities, but at the same time, can pose new challenges when a grid has not been properly prepared. Many jurisdictions are just beginning to understand how DERs fit into the wider energy landscape – what they are and what impacts they have on the grid, and how they can be used to improve system reliability and reduce overall energy costs. Meanwhile, other regions have built up experience with DERs, demonstrating that they can provide valuable services to the grid when incentivised with appropriate technologies, policies and regulations.Nonetheless, not all countries use the same electricity market model or are at the same stage of DER penetration, and the fit-for-purpose solutions will vary from place to place. This report reviews lessons from forerunners and distils best practices (with examples and case studies) to help policymakers, regulators and system operators across the globe understand what experience is most relevant to their own situation. Readers will be able to draw on a wide range of practical insights for electricity market design and regulation to help unlock the multiple grid benefits of DER technologies.

This report provides an overview of funding and financing instruments available to support infrastructure investment in cities and regions. Subnational governments have a critical role to deliver, operate and maintain infrastructure, and to invest to help drive the recovery from COVID-19. In recent years, many subnational governments have introduced innovations in the types of instruments used to access funding and financing. Highlighting examples from G20, OECD and non-OECD countries, this report presents a framework to differentiate funding and financing instruments, including by type of instrument, and their use, and outlines essential framework conditions that are needed to support subnational governments, The report was submitted to the G20 Infrastructure Working Group under the Italian Presidency and key findings were presented at the G20 High-level Conference on Local Infrastructure in Genoa, Italy on 27 September 2021.

In the midst of a global slowdown in productivity, unlocking the innovative potential of rural places is more important than ever. As part of a series on supporting to help rural areas thrive, this thematic report provides the latest analysis and research on rural innovation, and proposes ways to overcome the growing gaps between rural and urban places that are contributing to the geographies of discontent. It first explores the multi-facetted innovative practices that are already occurring in rural places, and proposes alternative indicators beyond the traditional science and technology measures to capture them. Then, it identifies policy drivers and bottlenecks to help rural entrepreneurs, firms and people fully mobilise their growth potential. Results and recommendations are drawn from research and fact-finding missions from select OECD member countries.

The Western Balkan economies have been implementing reforms to improve their competitiveness since the early 2000s. These reforms contributed to economic growth by removing barriers to trade and investment and facilitating the region’s integration into global markets. This led to a doubling of the size of their economies and a six-fold increase of their export volumes.Although the region has considerably reinforced its integration into global value chains, remaining non-tariff trade barriers and regulatory restrictions continue to hamper full access to foreign markets. Many industries in the Western Balkans remain fragile, their technology largely outdated and their products not sufficiently competitive outside the region. Their improved macroeconomic performance has only partially accelerated the structural transformation of domestic producers and their integration into global value chains. Limited business opportunities are a cause of high unemployment, pressing young and talented people to search for better opportunities abroad. At the same time, the Western Balkans face an issue common to all middle-income economies – pressure from countries with lower production costs. Therefore, a shift towards higher technological standards is needed to compete in international markets.The prospects of accession to the European Union (EU) and the alignment with the EU acquis represent excellent opportunities for the Western Balkans to fully embed their economies in European value chains, benefitting from increased investment flows and an upgrade of their manufacturing infrastructure. Against this backdrop, the Berlin Process represents a unique occasion for EU Member States to support the Western Balkans in their ongoing reform efforts, and for the Western Balkan economies to intensify mutual co operation and gain recognition for their endeavours. The OECD is launching this new study on trade and investment in the Western Balkan economies on the occasion of the 2019 Poznań Summit of the Berlin Process, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland, to help the region target the most strategic sectors for inclusive and sustainable growth. This publication was prepared within the OECD South East Europe regional programme, which supports governments in the region to foster sustainable growth, investment and employment through reforms promoting competitiveness and private sector development. This report represents a tangible contribution to the region’s ongoing process of economic reform, which aims to foster inclusive and sustainable growth for the benefit of all the citizens of the Western Balkans.