OECD Regional Recovery Platform

Building our understanding of the COVID-19 crisis and recovery in regions

The health, economic and social impacts of the crisis have been uneven across and within countries – and recovery from the crisis, so far, has also been uneven. Understanding the spatial dimension of the recovery and developing place-based policies is vital to support recovery in all regions.

The OECD Regional Recovery Platform contains internationally-comparable subnational data on the COVID-19 crisis and provides a compendium of policy solutions to support the recovery. It complements the OECD COVID-19 Recovery Dashboard to support a Strong, Inclusive, Green and Resilient Recovery, which provides indicators at a national-level.

Supporting the recovery in all regions through data and policy

The initial set of indicators and information will support governments and policymakers to:

Explore the impact of the crisis and the progress of the recovery across regions
Understand the long-term resilience of regions and priorities for building regional resilience
Identify policies being implemented internationally to support the recovery in regions
Consider possible future scenarios for regions and cities that might arise from COVID-19 crisis

Topics

Health

Employment

Subnational finance

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Digitalisation

Climate & Environment

Remote working

Explore the platform

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Video

Key data

In September 2021, the difference in vaccination rates between the most-vaccinated and least-vaccinated region was 16 people out of 100 on average (across 15 OECD countries). It was more than 20 people out of a hundred in the Czech Republic, United States, Germany and Belgium.
On average, across OECD countries, the region with the highest excess mortality had about 17 percentage points higher excess mortality than the least affected region within the same country.
Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, regions close to metropolitan areas had almost twice as many hospital beds per 1 000 inhabitants than remote regions.
In the second quarter of 2021 regional unemployment was higher than pre-COVID levels in more than 80% of OECD regions (comparing the most recent quarterly data with Q4 2019).
The share of workers that could potentially work remotely differs, on average, by 15 percentage points across regions within OECD countries.
There was a 50 percentage point difference between cities and rural areas in fixed broadband download speeds across 38 OECD countries in Q2 2021.
In 2020, grants and subsidies to subnational governments from central government increased in 21 out of 24 OECD countries and expenditure increased in 20 out of 24 countries.
High-carbon-intensive regions within countries release, on average, 23 times more tons of CO2 than low-carbon-intensive regions within each country.

How the OECD supports regions

The OECD Regional Recovery Platform has been developed with the support of the Regional Development Policy Committee, and its Working Parties on Territorial Indicators and Urban and Rural Policies. It also draws on evidence and policies developed in other subnational bodies, such as the OECD’s Local Employment and Economic Development Committee and the Geospatial Lab. With the support of OECD Members, the range of indicators and data will be expanded over time.

The OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities provides comparative statistics, analysis and capacity building for local and national actors to work together to unleash the potential of entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises, promote inclusive and sustainable regions and cities, boost local job creation, and support sound tourism policies.