Publications & Documents

By 2050, the global population living in cities is projected to reach 5 billion, growing from 3.5 billion in 2015. Massive investment in infrastructure will be needed to accommodate this growth, and to adapt infrastructure to climate change and benefit from the digital transition. This report explores three ways to meet this challenge. Firstly, it outlines how new forms of urban planning can help to mobilise private finance for inclusive, resilient and sustainable urban investment. Secondly, it explores how leveraging private investment can help to strengthen cities capacity to support needed investment in a tighter fiscal environment. Finally, it considers the potential opportunities and challenges for mobilising sustainable finance – green, social and sustainable bonds and loans, sustainability-linked bonds and catastrophe bonds – for infrastructure investment by City Governments. The report also includes 17 short case studies from 12 countries that demonstrate innovative practices for creating the Cities of Tomorrow.

Africa’s Development Dynamics uses lessons from Central, East, North, Southern and West Africa to develop policy recommendations and share good practices across the continent. Drawing on the most recent statistics, the analysis of development dynamics aims to assist African leaders in reaching the targets of the African Union’s Agenda 2063 at all levels: continental, regional, national and local. This edition explores how Africa can attract investments that offer the best balance between economic, social and environmental objectives. Its fresh data and analysis aim to help policy makers improve risk assessments, strengthen African-led partnerships, and accelerate regional integration in ways that increase sustainable investments. Two continental chapters examine Africa’s investment landscape and related policy priorities. Five regional chapters offer tailored recommendations in strategic areas including natural ecosystems, renewable energy, climate finance and agri-food value chains. Africa’s Development Dynamics feeds into a policy debate between the African Union’s governments, citizens, entrepreneurs and researchers. It proposes a new collaboration between countries and regions, focusing on mutual learning and the preservation of common goods. This report results from a partnership between the African Union Commission and the OECD Development Centre.

The Rethinking Regional Attractiveness in the New Global Environment report highlights lessons learned from multiple regional case studies from five EU countries (Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden), additional work with Latin American and Caribbean regions, and a series of webinars and one-on-one dialogues on rethinking regional attractiveness. The OECD’s innovative multidimensional approach to assessing regional attractiveness considers global engagement beyond international connections and economic factors alone. The methodology considers more than 50 indicators to develop regional attractiveness profiles covering six domains of attractiveness: economic attraction, connectedness, visitor appeal, natural environment, resident well-being, and land-use and housing. The report helps regional and national policy makers to understand how individual regions fare in a new global environment that continues to deal with the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis, compounded by the consequences of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and existing megatrends – all of which produce asymmetric impacts within and between countries and regions – and identify the policy levers available to enhance their attractiveness to the international target groups of investors, talent, and visitors. It also considers the need to co-ordinate across levels of government, across policy fields, and with private stakeholders, and highlights good practices to implement regional attractiveness policies.

Over the past few years, the global economy has suffered profound shocks that have had a marked impact on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs. While government support protected SMEs from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, new threats have emerged. Rising geopolitical tensions and global financial risks, high inflation, tightening monetary and fiscal policies, labour shortages, high trade barriers and slowing integration into global value chains all contribute to a more challenging business environment for SMEs. Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to accelerate the contribution of SMEs and entrepreneurship to the green and digital transitions and help them navigate a changing international trade and investment landscape. Against this background, the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook 2023 provides new evidence on recent trends in SME performance, changing business conditions, and policy implications. It reflects on the broad underlying theme of SME integration into a series of networks, including global production and supply-chain networks and the role of women led-businesses in international trade, knowledge and innovation networks, and skill ecosystems, as well as the main policies in place to ensure SMEs can integrate these networks and benefit from the ongoing transformations they go through. The report also contains statistical country profiles that benchmark the 38 OECD across a set of indicators.

Fiscal spending policies adopted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have been presented as a unique opportunity to 'build back better' and re-ignite the economy while accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy. This paper analyses 1 166 funding measures announced by 51 countries and the European Union in 2020-21 to support development and diffusion of low-carbon technologies. These measures – amounting to USD 1.29 trillion – can make an important contribution to filling the climate investment gap, particularly in emerging technologies such as carbon capture, usage and storage and green hydrogen. A modelling analysis suggests that they could have large impacts on greenhouse gas emissions and bring about significant co-benefits in terms of clean sectors’ output growth and reductions in fossil fuel imports.

This report presents an in-depth cross-country analysis of how long-term care workers fare along the different dimensions of job quality. In the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the applause for care workers was a clear expression of the strong recognition of their hard work and exposure to risks in their job. However, as the applause faded after the peak of the crisis, questions have re-emerged about how to improve the working conditions of long-term care workers in a sustainable way. Over the coming decades, the demand for these workers will increase substantially. Several countries are already facing shortages as the large baby-boom generation joins the older population. To go Beyond Applause, a comprehensive policy strategy is needed to tackle poor working conditions and insufficient social recognition of long-term care work, attract workers in the sector and avoid labour shortages reaching unacceptable levels. Such a strategy should cover several dimensions, with different priorities across countries depending on their specific context, including: direct interventions to raise wages and increase staff requirements; increasing public financing and fostering the leading role by governments; supporting collective bargaining and social dialogue; strengthening training; increasing use of new technologies; and, strengthening health prevention policies.

This report presents the policy recommendations resulting from the National Dialogue on Water in Indonesia, which took place between June 2022 and March 2023. Getting water resources management right, underpinned with appropriate financing mechanisms, is a prerequisite for realising Indonesia’s ambitious national economic growth agenda to become one of the top five global economies by 2045. The Dialogue, therefore, centred around two priority areas: 1) financing water infrastructure and 2) non-structural measures for flood disaster risk reduction. The report explores several instruments to enhance the financing of water services in Indonesia, such as the advantages and disadvantages of uniform water tariffs, independent economic regulation, pollution charges and demand management instruments. The report recommends the utilisation of land value capture as an additional source of financing. It also explores how water information systems for disaster response, flood forecasting and early warning can reduce flood disaster risk. The National Dialogue on Water in Indonesia is part of a regional initiative with the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Korea, the Asia Water Council and the OECD.

The Latvian government established the Housing Affordability Fund in mid-2022, a long-term self-sustaining financing model to channel investment into affordable housing. The fund is now being scaled up to ensure lasting impact on the Latvian housing market. This report identifies options for institutional arrangements, funding and financing opportunities, and operational tools to achieve this aim. It draws on the rich and diverse experiences of four peer countries in establishing and operating revolving fund schemes for affordable housing (Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Slovenia), and also reflects findings from engagement with a range of stakeholders in the Latvian housing sector.