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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.

Gender equality in terms of economic and financial opportunities is becoming increasingly relevant at both national and international level. The need to address the financial literacy of women and girls as a way to improve their financial empowerment, opportunities, and well-being has been acknowledged by the G20 Leader’s Declaration in June 2012, as well as part of a wider horizontal OECD project on gender equality. The OECD International Network on Financial Education (INFE) established a dedicated workstream in 2010 to address the needs of women for financial education under the support of the Russia/World Bank/OECD Trust Fund for financial literacy and education.

This book collects the work carried out within this workstream, including policy guidance to help policy makers address women's and girls' needs for financial education, and a comprehensive analysis of the current status of knowledge on gender differences in financial literacy and policy responses in terms of financial education for women and girls.

A new global energy landscape is emerging, resetting long-held expectations for our energy future. Incorporating these recent developments and world-class analysis, World Energy Outlook 2013 presents a full update of energy projections through to 2035 and insights into what they mean for energy security, climate change, economic development and universal access to modern energy services. Oil, coal, natural gas, renewables and nuclear power are all covered, along with an update on developments in subsidies to fossil fuels and renewable energy.

This year World Energy Outlook also gives a special focus to topical energy sector issues:

-Redrawing the energy-climate map: the short-term measures that could keep the 2°C target within reach, and the extent to which low-carbon development could leave fossil-fuel investments stranded. Special report to be released 10 June.

-Energy in Brazil: how a vast and diverse resource base – from renewables to new offshore discoveries – can meet the growing needs of the Brazilian economy and open up new export markets.

-Oil supply, demand and trade: a fresh look at the economics and decline rates of different types of oil production around the world, the prospects for light tight oil inside and outside North America, along with new analysis of oil products and the refining sector.

-The implications for economic competitiveness of the changing energy map: what the major disparities in regional energy prices might mean for major energy-intensive industries and the broader impact on economic growth and household purchasing power.

-The global spread of unconventional gas supply, including the uptake of the IEA “Golden Rules” to address public concerns about the associated environmental and social impacts.

-Energy trends in Southeast Asia, a region that is exerting a growing influence in the global energy system. Special report to be released 23 September.

The World Energy Outlook is recognised as the most authoritative source of strategic analysis of global energy markets. It is regularly used as input to the development of government policies and business strategies and raises public awareness of the key energy and environmental challenges the world is facing.

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.

The IEA Wind Power Technology Roadmap 2013 Edition recognises the very significant progress made since the first edition was published in 2009. The technology continues to improve rapidly, and costs of generation from land-based wind installations continue to fall. Wind power is now being deployed in countries with good resources without any dedicated financial incentives.

The 2013 Edition targets an increased share (15% to 18%) of global electricity to be provided by wind power in 2050, compared to 12% in the original roadmap of 2009. However, increasing levels of low-cost wind still require predictable, supportive regulatory environments and appropriate market designs. The challenges of integrating higher levels of variable wind power into the grid need to be addressed. For offshore wind, much remains to be done to develop appropriate large-scale systems and to reduce costs.

The 2013 Wind Power Roadmap also provides updated analysis on the barriers that exist for the technology and suggests ways to address them, including legal and regulatory recommendations.

This report assesses the main governance and financing challenges to private sector participation (PSP) in the water supply and sanitation sector of Jordan, and provides ways forward to address them, based on international experience and OECD compendium of principles and good practices. Using the diagnostic analysis of the governance challenges to PSP in the Jordan water sector (Chapter 1), the report identifies ways forward to overcome bottlenecks focusing on three key pillars (Chapter 2): i) managing public-private partnership in a fiscally constrained environment through appropriate budget processes; ii) reducing the regulatory risks through supporting the development of a high-quality framework; and iii)managing and enhancing stakeholder engagement to improve accountability and buy-in. The report also includes an action plan with concrete measures to implement the recommendations proposed in the report.

The report has 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.

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.

Sondersteuerregelungen sind nach wie vor ein kritischer Bereich im internationalen Steuerrecht. Der BEPS-Bericht der OECD stellte fest, dass hier wirkungsvollere Maßnahmen notwendig sind und dass die Arbeiten des Forums Schädliche Steuerpraktiken (FHTP) mit Blick auf Substanz und Transparenz neu ausgerichtet werden müssen. Dieser Zwischenbericht informiert über die diesbezüglich bislang erzielten Fortschritte.

Women in Business 2014 summarises the progress made by the OECD-MENA Women Business Forum (WBF) since the publication of its first Women in Business report in 2012. In 2012, five groups of actions had been identified as priorities to be carried out by governments, international stakeholders, financial and business support organisations, as well as statistical agencies. In two years, the WBF has developed inputs for three of these areas of priority actions. The WBF’s contributions are growing along with its increased recognition as a hub which spurs concrete improvements in the business climate for women entrepreneurs in the MENA region.

Today, women’s entrepreneurship is all the more important as governments in the region are facing the colossal challenge of rebooting job creation to improve the well-being of a growing workforce and confidence in the economy. The economic prospects of MENA economies that are going through a political transition have improved but unemployment has increased, inflation is rising and public finances have deteriorated. In these countries, political uncertainties add to long term structural difficulties. In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, the challenges still lie in the diversification of their economies.

The global energy landscape is evolving at a rapid pace, reshaping long-held expectations for our energy future. The 2014 edition of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) will incorporate all the latest data and developments to produce a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of medium- and longer-term energy trends. It will complement a full set of energy projections – which extend from today through, for the first time, the year 2040 – with strategic insights into their meaning for energy security, the economy and the environment. Oil, natural gas, coal, renewables and energy efficiency will be covered, along with updates on trends in energy-related CO2 emissions, fossil-fuel and renewable energy subsidies, and universal access to modern energy services.

The WEO-2014 will also provide in-depth analysis of some topical energy sector issues:

Africa: This continent-wide focus, paying particular attention to the energy outlook for sub-Saharan Africa, will include data and projections for the entire region as well as for its key energy-producing and consuming countries. Key elements for analysis will be the prospects for improving access to modern energy services and for developing the region’s huge resource potential in a way that contributes not only to regional and global energy balances but also to local economic and social well-being.

Nuclear power: Uncertainties continue to cloud the future for nuclear – government policy, public confidence, financing in liberalised markets, competitiveness versus other sources of generation and the looming retirement of a large fleet of older plants. The study will assess the outlook for nuclear power and its implications.

Energy sector investment (WEO Special Report to be released 3 June): The analysis will provide a detailed assessment of current flows and future investment needs along the entire energy value chain, examining the scale of investment required and financing options. The report will also show how barriers to investment vary according to the strength of decarbonisation policies.

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.