This page gathers recent and upcoming events organised by the OECD on the topic of housing.
This roundtable was organised by the OECD Berlin Centre and it debated policies to make housing policies more affordable and greener. To view the presentation and the video recording, visit the dedicated webpage. |
HYBRID EVENT ǀ 17 October (OECD Room D, 14:30-16:30 CET) with Triennale di Milano Getting a Home in Italy, International Perspectives & Experiences from Housing Project Stakeholders As in many countries, access to quality housing in a location with access to jobs, public services and amenities can be very challenging for Italian households on low or unstable incomes. The symposium draws on a book to be published on the same day: Housing in Italy through the Telescope and the Microphone. Prepared by Triennale Milano and the OECD with the support of the Permanent Representation of Italy to the OECD, this book puts the Italian housing market in international perspective using OECD statistics and analysis to compare housing policies and outcomes in Italy to other OECD countries.
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HYBRID EVENT ǀ 16 June (OECD Conference Centre Auditorium, 14:00-15:30 CET) Housing continues to challenge policymakers worldwide. Lockdowns during the pandemic and adoption of remote work facilitated by digitalisation have changed working practices, with durable impacts on housing demand. House prices and rents have risen sharply in many countries, putting pressure on household budgets and raising concerns about affordability, especially among vulnerable social groups. Achieving agreed climate change targets requires steadfast action to decarbonise the real estate sector, where energy consumption is high. The new OECD report Brick by Brick: Better Housing Policies – Volume II identifies tools that policymakers can mobilise to respond to these interconnected challenges, to deal with trade-offs among different policy objectives, and to create synergies among sectoral interventions in pursuit of common goals The High-Level Roundtable provides an opportunity for senior policymakers and stakeholders to exchange views on housing key challenges. The Roundtable will be opened by Mr. Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the OECD. Roundtable panellists: • Jorge Rivera Staff, National Energy Secretary, Panama Read the AGENDA |
Watch the Opening speech: |
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The OECD Champion Mayors for Inclusive Growth gathered on 13 June for their sixth meeting at the Brussels Urban Summit. With OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann, they endorsed the “Brussels Blueprint for Affordable Cities and Housing for All,” to ease short-term pressures on the cost of living and to ramp up action on housing. Double-digit inflation across the OECD has disproportionately affected low-income households, deepening pre-existing inequalities. The urban poor, as well as the squeezed middle class, were already struggling to keep up with soaring rents and house prices prior to the cost-of-living crisis. Real house prices rose by 77% between 1996 and 2022 in OECD countries, with the most severe pressures in cities. In 2021, a house in an urban area was around 50% more expensive than one in a remote region Visit the dedicated webpage. |
HYBRID EVENT ǀ 8 June (OECD Conference Centre Auditorium, 14:00-15:00 CET) Social housing allows individuals and households to access quality, affordable homes. It can also contribute to broader decarbonisation efforts through investment to improve the energy efficiency of new and existing dwellings. Recent OECD reports Brick by Brick: Building Better Housing Policies and Social Housing: A Key Part of Past and Future Housing Policy highlight this win-win feature of social housing but note that, on average across OECD countries, public investment in housing has more than halved over the past two decades to less than 0.1% of GDP.
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VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE ǀ 16 June (14:00-16:30 CET)
Housing is one of the most complex policy challenges facing societies nowadays. More than a home or a shelter, housing is also an item in balance sheets and a physical asset with an imprint on the environment. Rising house prices and rents in many parts of the world are placing an increasingly heavy burden on household budgets, especially among the less affluent social groups. Part of the challenge is that the supply of dwellings, including social housing, has not kept pace with strong demand, notably in the most sought-after cities and metropolitan areas.
At the same time, the COVID-19 crisis has exposed inequalities in housing conditions among population groups. Also, to the extent that changes in working habits and behaviour brought about by the pandemic are here to stay, they will encourage a rethink of urban development programmes, mass urban transport systems, the provision of services and amenities within metropolitan areas, and many other dimensions of housing policies that are at the interface of finance, urban planning, transport and social policies.
The OECD has launched a Housing Policy Toolkit to help analysts and policymakers make better housing policies. The Toolkit contains a report entitled Brick by Brick: Building Better Housing Policies that summarises the main findings of two years of analysis and evidence on several aspects of housing, including the design of a range of housing-relevant policies. The Toolkit also features a Dashboard of indicators covering outcomes and policy settings, and it is accompanied by Snapshots of the housing sector in different countries.
Agenda
14.00-14.10: Opening
Welcome and introductory remarks by Secretary-General Mathias Cormann
14.10-15.25: Mobilising the OECD Housing Policy Toolkit to future-proof housing markets
Presentation of the OECD Housing Policy Toolkit by Luiz de Mello, Director of Policy Studies, OECD Economics Department, followed by a roundtable discussion.
15.25-16:35: Investing in affordable and social housing to facilitate an inclusive economic recovery
Presentation of the OECD Affordable Housing Database, by Stefano Scarpetta, OECD Director for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, followed by a roundtable discussion.
Download detailed agenda
WEBINAR ǀ 10 December (16:00-17:30 CET)
The COVID-19 crisis has revealed and often aggravated the housing challenges many OECD cities were already struggling with before the pandemic. While local and national governments have deployed emergency measures to secure shelter, such temporary measures will not be enough in the long term.
As part of the Champion Mayors Webinar Series “Inequality Matters”, this event focused on how the COVID-19 crisis is changing housing needs in cities and what local and national governments can do to offer more affordable, sustainable and adequate housing for all. Visit the dedicated webinar web page.
This round table discussed the key challenges brought about by the COVID-19 crisis and possible housing policy responses. The main topics for discussion were:
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Round table summary |
Round table agenda |
This workshop aimed to provide evidence-based analysis to help governments design and implement coherent policy strategies to ensure a well-functioning and sustainable housing sector. It focused on two interrelated areas:
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Workshop summary |
Workshop agenda |