Publications & Documents

Digital technologies are having a profound impact on economies, labour markets and societies. They also have the potential to transform government, by enabling the implementation of more accessible and effective services. To support a shift towards digital government, investment is needed in developing the skills of civil servants. This paper reviews good practices across OECD countries to foster skills for digital government. It presents different approaches in public administration to organising training activities as well as opportunities for informal learning. It also provides insights into how relevant skills can be identified through competence frameworks, how they can be assessed, and how learning opportunities can be evaluated.

In an increasingly digital world, the significance of cyber security for individuals, businesses, and governments has never been greater. Rising cyber attacks are challenging current defence and operational capabilities, highlighting a critical shortage of skilled cyber security professionals. This report delves into the demand for cyber security expertise by analysing online job postings in France, Germany and Poland in between 2018 and 2023. It examines trends in the demand for cyber security professionals, the geographical distribution of job opportunities, and the changing skill requirements in this field. Focusing on France, the report also explores cyber security education and training programmes, the characteristics of the programmes, the demographics of enrolled learners, and their outcomes. Additionally, it reviews French policies and initiatives aimed at broadening the cyber security workforce and enhancing educational opportunities in this field. This comprehensive analysis is part of a larger effort to understand the evolving landscape of cyber security policies and professional experiences worldwide.

Artificial intelligence will have profound impacts across health systems, transforming health care, public health, and research. Responsible AI can accelerate efforts toward health systems being more resilient, sustainable, equitable, and person-centred. This paper provides an overview of the background and current state of artificial intelligence in health, perspectives on opportunities, risks, and barriers to success. The paper proposes several areas to be explored for policy makers to advance the future of responsible AI in health that is adaptable to change, respects individuals, champions equity, and achieves better health outcomes for all. The areas to be explored relate to trust, capacity building, evaluation, and collaboration. This recognises that the primary forces that are needed to unlock the value from artificial intelligence are people-based and not technical. The OECD is ready to support efforts for co-operative learning and collective action to advance the use of responsible AI in health.

This report adds two perspectives on informality. First, it disassembles the mechanics of the deleterious links between informal employment, low-paying work and low skills. It shows that informal employment is highly persistent, and that the vulnerability of informal workers is passed on to their children in the absence of adequate education, skills and social protection policy. Second, the report underscores the double burden of informality and low-paying work that a large share of workers in developing and emerging economies carry, and as such calls for policy solutions that go beyond the formalisation agenda and embrace the goal of social justice.

In recent years, provision of relevant up-skilling and re-skilling opportunities for adults has become a necessity due to global megatrends affecting labour markets. As a result, countries are looking to strengthen these opportunities throughout the life course. The successful deployment of these initiatives requires a coherent set of policies, with quality assurance being critically important. This paper provides an overview of quality assurance mechanisms from the perspective of the 38 OECD member countries. It proposes a framework to characterise and compare the governance, processes and outcomes of these mechanisms. The paper's contribution is to facilitate understanding of quality assurance across OECD countries, presenting a visual cross-country mapping that classifies existing mechanisms.

The rapid acceleration in the pace of AI innovation in recent years and the advent of content generating capabilities (Generative AI or GenAI) have increased interest in AI innovation in finance, in part due to the user-friendliness and intuitive interface of GenAI tools. The use of AI in financial markets involving full end-to-end automation without any human intervention remains largely at development phase, but its wider deployment could amplify risks already present in financial markets and give rise to new challenges. This paper presents recent evolutions in AI in finance and potential risks and discusses whether policy makers may need to reinforce policies and strengthen protection against these risks.

As countries seek to draw lessons the COVID-19 crisis and increase their future resilience, evaluations are important tools to understand what worked or not, why and for whom. This report builds on the OECD work on 'government evaluations of COVID-19 responses'. It evaluates Belgium’s responses to the pandemic in terms of risk preparedness, crisis management, as well as public health, education, economic and fiscal, and social and labour market policies. Preserving the country’s resilience in the future will require promoting trust in public institutions and whole-of-government approaches to crisis management, reducing inequalities, and preserving the fiscal balance. The findings and recommendations of this report will provide guidance to public authorities in these efforts.