Reports

While means-tested benefits such as minimum income benefits (MIB) and unemployment assistance (UA) are an essential safety net for low-income people and the unemployed, incomplete take-up is the rule rather than the exception. Building on desk research, open-ended surveys and semi-structured interviews, this paper investigates the opportunities and risks of using artificial intelligence (AI) for managing these means-tested benefits. This ranges from providing information to individuals, through determining eligibility based on pre-determined statutory criteria and identifying undue payments, to notifying individuals about their eligibility status. One of the key opportunities of using AI for these purposes is that this may improve the timeliness and take-up of MIB and UA. However, it may also lead to systematically biased eligibility assessments or increase inequalities, amongst others. Finally, the paper explores potential policy directions to help countries seize AI’s opportunities while addressing its risks, when using it for MIB or UA management.

As 'market referees', regulators contribute to the delivery of essential public utilities. Their organisational culture, behaviour, actions and governance are important factors in how they, and the sectors they oversee, perform. The OECD Performance Assessment Framework for Economic Regulators (PAFER) looks at the institutions, processes and practices that can create an organisational culture of performance and results. This report uses PAFER to assess both the internal and external governance of Brazil’s National Agency for Water and Basic Sanitation (ANA). The review offers recommendations for the regulator to build upon its strong technical reputation and good practices. It proposes an integrated set of recommendations to help ANA best fulfil its roles relating to water resource management and water-use regulation, dam safety, and water supply and sanitation.

The state of Paraná in Brazil has turned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guiding framework for its territorial development policy since 2016. Building on the recommendations from the OECD report on 'A Territorial Approach to the SDGs in Paraná, Brazil' (2021), the state has continued to leverage the SDGs as a vehicle to address territorial disparities and challenges in a number of policy domains, including agriculture, health, education, economic growth, environmental conservation and public safety. This report assesses the state’s progress on the 2021 OECD recommendations and offers renewed guidance on how to harness the SDGs to tackle the state’s main challenges, including designing a state-wide Sustainable Development Plan and integrating the SDGs in its new 2053 Strategic Vision.

Brazil's public governance efforts have been seen as a model for other Latin American countries in areas such as civil service reform, open and digital government. However, in line with regional trends, trust in government and public institutions in Brazil has consistently declined in recent decades, hindering inclusive and sustainable growth, as well as social cohesion. The COVID-19 and other emerging crises have further exacerbated this trend and highlighted the need to strengthen the resilience of public institutions. Brazil is the first country in Latin America to undertake an OECD study on the main drivers of trust in public institutions, as part of a broader effort in building trustworthy relationships between the people and institutions. This report provides novel evidence on Brazilian people’s expectations and evaluation of government’s reliability, responsiveness, openness, integrity and fairness, based on the OECD Trust Survey. Based on this evidence, it identifies opportunities to further enhance trust, including improving the delivery and responsiveness of public services, enhancing foresight, planning, and preparedness to address long-term challenges, and promoting communication and engagement between the government and the people.

The behaviours of both top- and middle-level managers matter for promoting open organisational cultures, mitigating integrity risks and fostering ethical behaviour by their staff. This report examines key issues around integrity leadership in Brazil’s federal public administration, based on an extensive survey of senior public officials. Informed and inspired by behavioural insights, it provides concrete recommendations for strengthening integrity leadership in Brazil.

In the face of what has increasingly been referred to as an ongoing 'permacrisis', governments must cope with and respond to emerging threats while already grappling with longstanding issues such as climate change, digital disruption and low levels of trust. In this context, understanding new approaches and spreading successful ideas has never been more important. To promote this, the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI) has analysed 1 084 innovative initiatives from 94 countries to derive and understand novel government practices. The report discusses four key trends: 1) new forms of accountability for a new era of government, 2) new approaches to care, 3) new methods for preserving identities and strengthening equity and 4) new ways of engaging citizens and residents. Ten case studies and dozens of supporting examples illustrate these trends.

This document brings together previous international evidence collected by the OECD on the topics of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) and the education policy context of Brazil to support policy dialogue in Brazil on the reform of ECEC in 2024. This document looks into the following areas: 1) Why ECEC matters for stronger social and economic outcomes in Brazil, 2) How some OECD education systems are supporting access to and quality of ECEC, and 3) Which policy directions taken by some OECD countries can inform Brazil’s efforts to strengthen access and quality of ECEC?

Appropriately designed and implemented regulations are powerful tools for enhancing economic performance. A strong and sound regulatory framework can mitigate threats to health, safety, and the environment and address market imperfections. However, regulation can also create barriers to the entry and expansion of firms, which may limit and distort competition. Some of these barriers are necessary, but others may go beyond what is needed to address the policy objectives and the market failure(s) regulation is intended to remedy. The OECD developed in the late 1990s a set of Product Market Regulation (PMR) Indicators to assess how competition-friendly the regulatory framework of a country is across a range of sectors and regulatory areas. A regulatory framework that facilitates competition, for example, can stimulate productivity by encouraging the efficient allocation of resources and promoting innovation and growth. This paper examines a range of product markets, services, and network industries in Brazil, relying on the results of the PMR indicators, and identifies areas where country’s regulations could be brought more in line with international best practices. These include the governance of state-owned enterprises, interaction between policy makers and interest groups, network sectors, and professional services.

This paper describes and analyses recent reforms in the natural gas market in Brazil aimed at fostering a more open, competitive, efficient, and flexible gas sector. This paper reviews the changes in the regulatory framework using two lenses: the reform process seen through a regulatory policy lens and the resulting regulatory framework using the OECD Product Market Regulation (PMR) indicator. The paper includes policies options to further improve the regulatory framework in the sector and reap the full range of benefits of the reforms.