Latest Documents

The governance of infrastructure can affect how and whether infrastructure projects achieve desired outcomes and contribute to wider policy goals. This paper presents the conceptual framework, design and methodology of the OECD Infrastructure Governance Indicators (IGIs). The IGIs support the implementation and monitoring of the OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Infrastructure. This paper also describes the key findings from the first set of IGIs, which cover three areas: long-term strategic vision for infrastructure; fiscal sustainability, affordability and value for money; and efficient and effective public procurement. It identifies the governance dimensions that are well developed across OECD countries and those that require improvements under each of the three areas.

Despite recent progress to improve gender equality in the Czech Republic, several gender gaps persist in different areas of the society and economy. Based on growing evidence on how gender-sensitive policymaking can underpin inclusive growth and resilience, this OECD review has been developed to help the government of the Czech Republic strengthen its capacities for implementing and mainstreaming gender equality across the whole of government. It assesses strategic enablers such as legal and strategic frameworks, the institutional set-up, and accountability mechanisms for gender mainstreaming in the country. It also examines the tools and practices that can be used to inform gender-sensitive policymaking in the Czech Republic. Drawing upon promising practices across OECD countries, it offers evidence-informed recommendations, tailored to the Czech context to improve governance and capacities for accelerating progress in gender equality.

In recent decades, Colombia has pursued a strategy to encourage gender equality as an important enabler of inclusive growth and national well-being and to promote gender mainstreaming through institutions, policies and tools. This report assesses four main pillars of Colombia’s governance for gender equality, analysing strengths and identifying areas for further improvement. It examines strategic planning for gender equality policy, a whole-of-government approach to promoting gender equality policy, using government tools to achieve gender equality objectives, and an inclusive and gender-sensitive emergency preparedness framework. The report also provides examples of different approaches in OECD Member and Partner countries to closing gender equality gaps. Based on this analysis, the report proposes solutions to help Colombia strengthen gender mainstreaming and gender-sensitive policy making to promote sustainable, inclusive economic growth.

Despite the fundamental importance of childhood, countries tend to invest much less in this area than in old age. Effective child well-being policies can bring high long-term returns on early life investments and public interventions. However, these benefits are not fully understood and thus do not always receive the necessary political attention in public policy making. Mobilising evidence to support effective policies for child well-being is crucial, especially as responsibilities for such policies tend to be fragmented across government departments and levels of government. Therefore, organisations such as knowledge brokers, which help ensure that evidence is shared with those responsible for designing and implementing public policies, have a critical role to play in improving the effectiveness of child well-being policies and practices. They can help make evidence accessible, trustworthy, and understandable, so that it has the greatest impact on policy. This working paper sheds light on the best practices identified for mobilising evidence to enhance the effectiveness of child well-being policies, based on a stocktaking of 81 knowledge broker organisations across 24 countries, complemented by a qualitative survey carried out among senior experts operating at national and international level.

The institutions that make up the centre of government (CoG) play a crucial role in the policymaking process and help to ensure that government decisions are timely, evidence-informed, strategic and consistent. Despite this prominent role, the CoG often has the reputation of being somewhat opaque in terms of its structure and ways of working. This report presents an overview of the role and functions of the CoG of five European Neighbourhood Policy East countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine – from a comparative perspective, both with respect to each other and in comparison with CoGs in OECD and EU countries. The report explores the CoG’s role in policy co-ordination, how it supports quality decision making, its contribution to strategic planning and its role in managing European integration issues. The report highlights strengths and challenges in the ways that the CoG institutions operate in the five countries and suggests areas for which policy dialogue and exchange of experience with OECD and EU Members could help to enhance outcomes.

Promoting the professionalisation of the public procurement workforce is gaining attention across EU Member States and OECD countries. To support professionalisation initiatives, the European Commission designed a scalable and structured tool to assess the skills and knowledge of public procurement professionals. This tool, known as ProcurCompEU, provides public organisations with the means to identify missing competences or areas where further capability-building initiatives could be implemented. To strengthen the relevance of the tool, the OECD has been supporting public administrations from several OECD countries in testing ProcurCompEU. This report provides insights on these pilots and draws lessons to further increase the scalability of the tool to different contexts and objectives.