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Subnational governments in Asia and the Pacific are key providers of the public services and infrastructure required to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Given this role, it is essential that policymakers and development partners understand and support the effective functioning of multi-level governance structures and subnational government finances across the region. This joint OECD-ADB report provides a comprehensive overview of subnational governments across Asia and the Pacific. It covers over 467,000 subnational governments from 26 countries, which represent 53% of the world’s population and 40% of global GDP. On average in 2020, subnational governments in the region accounted for 29% of total public expenditure (8.8% of GDP), 35% of total public revenue (8.5% of GDP) and 38% of public investment (2% of GDP). Harnessing unique data from the 3rd edition of the OECD-UCLG World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment, the analysis highlights how decentralisation and territorial reforms have reconfigured the structures and finances of subnational governments in the region. It covers a range of topics including fiscal rules, financial management capacity, priority-based budgeting, asset management and the use of public-private partnerships.

The bioeconomy brings opportunities for economic growth while tackling climate change. Fossil carbon resources can be replaced by bio-based carbon resources, especially biomass. To allow these solutions to be scaled up without threats to biodiversity and the environment, it is necessary to develop the bioeconomy as a circular economy. With this carbon management approach, other sources of carbon complement biomass: industrial waste, including gases such as CO and CO2, as well as physically and chemically recycled carbon. In the future, direct air capture (DAC) may become competitive and form part of the solution. These approaches can be considered ‘circular’ because they close material loops and keep carbon recycling in the economy rather than emitting carbon to the atmosphere. This report reviews a number of hybrid technologies that can be deployed to ‘defossilise’ economic sectors and sets out policy options to bring these technologies to commercial scale.

Green hydrogen, produced from water and renewable power through the electrolysis process, can play a crucial role in the low-carbon transition to achieve the net-zero emission targets. Currently, the production cost of green hydrogen is not competitive when compared to hydrogen produced from natural gas. High capital costs are a major factor constraining its cost-competitiveness. This working paper utilises financial market data to address the knowledge gap concerning the range of Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) for green hydrogen projects. It also conducts a survey among investors and financiers to identify key risk factors contributing to the high WACC. The key risks that have been identified include offtaker risks, lack of credible offtakers, price uncertainty of green hydrogen, and the absence of hydrogen trading markets. These risks are closely connected to the available risk mitigation strategies and tools. The paper summarises key risk mitigation strategies identified through case studies of lighthouse green hydrogen projects that have either reached or are nearly point of reaching financial investment decisions.

Multifactor productivity is a comprehensive measure of productivity where the underlying production function accounts for multiple factor inputs, traditionally labour and produced capital. While single-factor productivity is intuitively simple, such measure offers a biased picture of the economy because it attributes all variation in output growth to a single factor input (e.g. consumption of fossil fuels or material resources) while the role of other factors is ignored. Multifactor productivity aims at addressing this shortcoming, and as such it is a valuable component of the OECD set of Green Growth headline indicators. This paper presents further progress in measuring the EAMFP and related growth accounting indicators in 52 countries for 1996-2018. An important novelty is the inclusion of renewable natural resources such as land, timber and fisheries, and ecosystem services such as coastal and watershed protection. Exploratory results on accounting for renewable energy resources are also included.

At a time when global trade is under pressure and countries increasingly turn to regional integration to support their development, this Spotlight is a timely read for policy makers and business leaders in Africa and beyond. It shows how harnessing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) can support industrialisation in Egypt, and more widely in Africa, by tapping the full potential of regional supply chains, including renewable energies, pharmaceuticals, logistics and creative industries. This report builds on and enriches the Production Transformation Policy Review of Egypt: Embracing Change, Achieving Prosperity.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are contaminants of emerging environmental and health concern that have been detected in freshwater, wastewater and drinking water. They interfere with the endocrine system in humans and wildlife, and produce adverse effects such as developmental, reproductive, neurological and immune effects. Their presence in water raises concerns for the integrity of ecosystems and biodiversity. Addressing the challenges of EDCs in water is particularly complex due to their ability to trigger adverse effects at very low concentrations, their potency in mixtures with other chemicals, and the vast range of sources and entryways of this group of chemicals into the environment. This report presents new water quality monitoring methods, such as bioassays and non-targeted analysis, that are well equipped to capture the impacts of EDCs in water. These new methods supplement the traditional substance-by-substance chemical analysis of water quality. The report also outlines policy instruments to manage the chemicals’ lifecycle from source to end-of-pipe. It proposes tools and regulations that respond to the negative effects of endocrine disruption, even if the culprit chemical is still unknown. The analysis draws on case studies from OECD countries to provide practical examples and concrete policy actions.

In recent years, international development co-operation has undergone a transition from a conventional donor-recipient model to a partnership-centred approach, including with regions and cities. Friuli Venezia Giulia, a small region in north-eastern Italy with extensive policy autonomy, has been active in international co-operation and is seeking to get more out of its actions both for the region and with its co-operation partners around the world. This paper evaluates its strategy on international partnership and co-operation and proposes recommendations, including more targeted initiatives that leverage the expertise of the region for greater impact in partner countries and for local benefits.

A megadiverse county, Costa Rica is known globally for its success in reversing deforestation and pursuing a growth model based on the sustainable use of its environmental resources. However, energy use and related greenhouse gas emissions increased in the last decade. Private cars are a major and growing source of emissions affecting climate and air quality. Waste disposal still relies on landfills, and much wastewater is untreated. Costa Rica’s extensive protected area network and pioneering programme of payments for ecosystem services have helped reduce biodiversity loss and extend forests’ carbon sequestration capacity. However, more should be done to tackle pressures on biodiversity from development of infrastructure and settlements, tourism, farming and fishing. The sheer scale of investment needed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals calls for improving the efficiency of public spending, mobilising private finance, strictly enforcing regulations and providing adequate incentives. This is the first OECD Environmental Performance Review of Costa Rica. It evaluates the country’s progress towards sustainable development, with a special chapter focusing on biodiversity, and provides 52 recommendations.

While many countries of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have committed to achieving climate neutrality and building resilience, translating these commitments into actions is imperative. This requires, for instance, better management of increasing risks from climate change and climate variability, as well as reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through promoting innovation and green investments. Achieving these goals will require comprehensive long-term strategic and financial planning, a more integrated and inclusive approach, which better aligns adaptation and mitigation policies and measures across different sectors, albeit at a differentiated level. This report identifies LAC countries’ main climate change policy priorities, which were discussed through a series of Regional Policy Dialogues and Expert Workshops and complements these with findings of recent analyses by the OECD and other international partners. It explores issues related to their implementation on climate adaptation, mitigation, and cross-cutting policy areas. The report covers various economic sectors, ranging from energy, transport, agriculture and tourism, as well as environment-related policies on infrastructure, water, biodiversity and ecosystems. The report also explores cross-cutting topics, such as climate governance and finance, environmental information, technology transfer, circular economy, oceans, gender equality and education. To overcome challenges and grasp the opportunities associated with a transition towards climate resilience and neutrality, the report proposes an Action Plan, with 40 key policy recommendations.