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The report provides a comprehensive picture of well-being in the major Danish cities, by looking at a wide range of dimensions that shape people’s lives. It contains both objective and subjective indicators meant to help policy makers, citizens and other stakeholders to better understand living conditions not only among cities but also among the different neighbourhoods within cities. This information can help policy makers build a development strategy based on well-being metrics, and choose the courses of action that will make the most difference in people’s lives.
Ireland has made considerable progress in rebounding from the crisis, but, like other OECD countries, continues to grapple with how to address lingering socio-economic impacts and ensure inclusive growth growing forward. Multi-faceted interventions, targeting disadvantaged populations and the places they live, can lead to more effective and inclusive policies. Ignoring the relationship between people and place will, in contrast, lead to further entrenched disadvantage. This report looks at some of the ways in which Ireland can build on an already comprehensive series of reforms to better weave together current policies and practices.
In this inaugural annual report on energy investments around the world, the International Energy Agency (IEA) looks at the lifeblood of the global energy system: investment. The ability to attract and direct capital flows is vital to transitioning to a low-carbon economy while also maintaining energy security and expanding energy access worldwide. The success or failure of energy policies can be measured by their ability to mobilise investments.
The new report measures in a detailed manner the state of investment in the energy system across technologies, sectors and regions. The analysis takes a comprehensive look at the critical issues confronting investors, policy-makers, and consumers over the past year.
World Energy Investment 2016 addresses key questions, including :
- What was the level of investment in the global energy system in 2015? Which countries attracted the most capital?
- What fuels and technologies received the most investment and which saw the biggest changes?
- How is the low fuel price environment affecting spending in upstream oil and gas, renewables and energy efficiency? What does this mean for energy security?
- Are current investment trends consistent with the transition to a low-carbon energy system?
- How are technological progress, new business models and key policy drivers such as the Paris Climate Agreement reshaping investment?
World Energy Investment 2016As a unique benchmark of current investment trends, serves as a complement to the forecasts and projections found in other IEA publications and provides a critical foundation for decision making by governments and industry.
The data service contains energy balances for over 150 countries and regions. The figures are expressed in thousand tonnes of oil equivalent (ktoe) and in terajoules. Conversion factors used to calculate energy balances and indicators such as GDP and population are also provided. In general, the data are available for 1971 (1960 for OECD countries) to 2014, with preliminary estimates of 2015 production (and trade when available) for natural gas, primary coal and oil.
Definitions of products and flows, explanatory notes on the individual country data, indicators (including GDP, population, industrial production index and ratios calculated with the energy data) and net calorific values are also included.
The data service contains key energy statistics for over 150 countries and regions. Data are provided in original units for the different types of coal, oil, natural gas, renewables and waste, as well as for electricity and heat. In general, the data are available for 1971 (1960 for OECD countries) to 2014, with preliminary estimates of 2015 production (and trade when available) for natural gas, primary coal and oil.
Data are provided in original units for the different types of coal, oil, natural gas, renewables and waste, as well as for electricity and heat. In general, the data are available for 1960 to 2014.
Präferenzielle Steuerregelungen sind weiterhin ein kritischer Bereich. Besorgnis herrscht gegenwärtig vor allem über präferenzielle Regelungen, die zur künstlichen Gewinnverlagerung genutzt werden können, sowie über mangelnde Transparenz im Zusammenhang mit bestimmten steuerlichen Vorabzusagen („Rulings“). In diesem Bericht wird die vereinbarte Methode beschrieben, um festzustellen, ob eine wesentliche Geschäftstätigkeit vorliegt. In Bezug auf Regelungen für geistiges Eigentum, wie z.B. Patentboxen, einigte man sich auf den „Nexus-Ansatz“, bei dem die Ausgaben als Hilfsvariable für die wesentliche Geschäftstätigkeit dienen, womit gewährleistet wird, dass Steuerpflichtige eine solche Regelung nur in Anspruch nehmen können, wenn sie Forschungs- und Entwicklungstätigkeiten durchgeführt und für diese Aktivitäten effektiv Ausgaben getätigt haben. Das gleiche Prinzip kann auch auf andere präferenzielle Regelungen angewandt werden, und zwar so, dass die erforderliche wesentliche Geschäftstätigkeit dann vorliegt, wenn der Steuerpflichtige die entscheidenden einkünftegenerierenden Tätigkeiten durchgeführt hat. Zur Förderung der Transparenz wurde ein Rahmen für den verbindlichen spontanen Informationsaustausch über steuerliche Vorabzusagen vereinbart, die ohne einen solchen Informationsaustausch zu BEPS-Problemen führen könnten. Der Bericht liefert zudem die Ergebnisse der Anwendung der bereits zuvor vom FHTP verwendeten Kriterien sowie der nun genauer ausgearbeiteten Faktoren der wesentlichen Geschäftstätigkeit (Substanz) und der Transparenz auf eine Reihe von Regelungen.
This review is the first in a new series on the skills and labour market integration of immigrants and their children. With 16% of its population born abroad, Sweden has one of the larger immigrant populations among the European OECD countries. Estimates suggest that about half of the foreign-born population originally came to Sweden as refugees or as the family of refugees and Sweden has been the OECD country that has had by far the largest inflows of asylum seekers relative to its population. In all OECD countries, humanitarian migrants and their families face greater challenges to integrate into the labour market than other groups. It is thus not surprising that immigrant versus native-born differences are larger than elsewhere, which also must be seen in the context of high skills and labour market participation among the native-born. For both genders, employment disparities are particularly pronounced among the low-educated, among whom immigrants are heavily overrepresented. These immigrants face particular challenges related to the paucity of low-skilled jobs in Sweden, and policy needs to acknowledge that their integration pathway tends to be a long one. Against this backdrop, Sweden has highly developed and longstanding integration policies that mainly aim at upskilling immigrants while temporarily lowering the cost of hiring, while other tools that work more strongly with the social partners and the civil society are less well developed and need strengthening.
Urban, demographic and climate trends are increasingly exposing cities to risks of having too little, too much and too polluted water. Facing these challenges requires robust public policies and sound governance frameworks to co-ordinate across multiple scales, authorities, and policy domains. Building on a survey of 48 cities in OECD countries and emerging economies, the report analyses key factors affecting urban water governance, discusses trends in allocating roles and responsibilities across levels of government, and assesses multi-level governance gaps in urban water management. It provides a framework for mitigating territorial and institutional fragmentation and raising the profile of water in the broader sustainable development agenda, focusing in particular on the contribution of metropolitan governance, rural-urban partnerships and stakeholder engagement.
The precipitous fall in oil prices, continued geopolitical instability and the ongoing global climate negotiations are witness to the dynamic nature of energy markets. In a time of so much uncertainty, understanding the implications of the shifting energy landscape for economic and environmental goals and for energy security is vital. The World Energy Outlook 2015 (WEO-2015) will present updated projections for the evolution of the global energy system to 2040, based on the latest data and market developments, as well as detailed insights on the prospects for fossil fuels, renewables, the power sector and energy efficiency and analysis on trends in CO2 emissions and fossil-fuel and renewable energy subsidies.
In addition, the WEO-2015 covers in-depth analysis on several topical issues:
A lower oil price future? The decline in oil prices and changed market conditions has prompted a broad debate over how and when the oil market will re-balance. This analysis will examine the implications for markets, policies, investment, the fuel mix and emissions if oil prices stay lower for longer.
India’s energy outlook: How India’s energy sector develops over the coming decades will have profound implications both for the country’s own prospects and for the global energy system as a whole. With new impetus behind efforts to upgrade the country’s energy supply, this comprehensive, in-depth analysis will assess the multiple challenges and opportunities facing India as it develops the resources and infrastructure to meet rapidly rising energy demand.
Renewables and energy efficiency: In the run-up to COP21, the Outlook will provide a report on the competitive position of fast-growing renewable energy technologies in different markets, how this evolves and what implications this might have for policy; the analysis also tracks for the first time the coverage of energy use by efficiency policies around the world and the ways in which product design, recycling and reuse (“material efficiency”) can contribute to energy savings.
Unconventional gas: In addition to an update on the opportunities and challenges that face the development of unconventional gas globally, analysis will focus on the prospects for unconventional gas in China and how this might affect China’s energy outlook as well as regional and global balances.
Water is abundant in Brazil, but unevenly distributed across regions and users. Remarkable progress to reform the sector has been achieved since the 1997 National Water Law, but economic, climate and urbanisation trends generate threats that may jeopardize national growth and development. The consequences are particularly acute in regions where tensions across water users already exist or are likely to grow. The report is the result of a policy dialogue with more than 100 stakeholders at different levels in Brazil. It assesses the performance of Brazil’s water governance and suggests policy recommendations for strengthening the co-ordination between federal and state water policies and for setting up more robust water allocation regimes that can better cope with future risks. The report concludes with an action plan, which suggests concrete milestones and champion institutions to implement those recommendations.
This paper aims to support a process to establish a global emission inventory for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). It uses perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids (PFCAs) as a reference to present an overall picture of global and regional emissions of PFASs and other related fluorinated substances due to the numerous interlinkages between PFCAs and many other fluorinated substances. The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the current understanding of historical and ongoing global and regional emissions of C4–C14 PFCAs and identifies critical gaps and key uncertainties in terms of data collection and integration to accurately measure global and regional emissions of C4–C14 PFCAs. The paper does not provide direct data on substances other than PFCAs, such as perfluoroalkane sulfonic acids (PFSAs) and perfluoroalkane phosphonic acids (PFPAs); however, information on and/or estimates of the emissions of these substances is an important element of understanding the global emissions of PFCAs and are provided in the background assessment and estimation. Recommendations for improving knowledge on global and regional emissions of PFAS are presented.
Thema dieses Berichts sind die Herausforderungen für das urbane Wassermanagement im OECD-Raum. Untersucht werden Maßnahmen auf nationaler und kommunaler Ebene in Bezug auf Wasserrisiken, die städtische Infrastruktur und Dynamik sowie Institutionen und Governance-Regelungen. Die Analyse richtet den Blick auf vier miteinander verknüpfte Bereiche – Finanzierung, Innovation, Kooperation mit ländlichen Gemeinden im Umland und Governance – und schlägt eine lösungsorientierte Typologie auf der Grundlage bestimmter städtischer Merkmale vor. Dabei wird insbesondere festgestellt, dass ein nachhaltiges Wassermanagement das Zusammenwirken verschiedener staatlicher Ebenen voraussetzt, die mit lokalen Initiativen und Akteuren zusammenarbeiten.
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.
This report focuses on the urban water management challenges facing cities across OECD countries, and explores both national and local policy responses with respect to water-risk exposure, the state of urban infrastructures and dynamics, and institutional and governance architectures. The analyses focus on four mutually dependent dimensions – finance, innovation, urban-rural co-operation and governance – and proposes a solutions-oriented typology based on urban characteristics. The report underlines that sustainable urban water management will depend on collaboration across different tiers of government working together with local initiatives and stakeholders.
Public institutions play a critical role in promoting gender-sensitive policies and gender equality more broadly, in the MENA region and around the world. Advancing gender balance in public institutions and public life more generally, including the judiciary, parliaments, and the political executive constitutes a major step towards gender-responsive policies and non-discrimination and serves as a key milestone in promoting gender equality. This report provides a comparative overview of the policies affecting women’s participation in public life across the MENA region. It examines the existing barriers to women’s access to public decision-making positions, and provides a cross-country assessment of current instruments and institutions to advance women’s empowerment in the MENA region. The report undertakes an analysis of the existing legal barriers for gender equality in public life, including with regard to political and economic rights, freedom of movement, labour law, family law, access to justice and gender-based violence and provides focused policy-recommendations to close legal and institutional gaps. The report has been prepared by the OECD, in partnership with Centre for Arab Women Training and Research (CAWTAR) and with the support of the Arab Administrative Development Organisation (ARADO) and covers the following countries: Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
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.
Many revenue bodies have been developing strategies and approaches to improve the tax collection and recovery processes, so that they are more effective and cost less. Very promising and proven new practices have emerged, which can deliver spectacular improvements in performance in tax collection and recovery. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the best practices in tax debt management, with a particular emphasis on how to better differentiate debtors when deciding how to best secure payment and what can be done to ensure that payment issues are considered earlier in the compliance and collection process.
This report diagnoses the main governance and financing challenges to private sector participation in the water supply and wastewater sector of Tunisia, and provides ways forward to address these challenges. It 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.
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.
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.