In the coming months, the international community will gather three times and on three different continents, to build a sustainable development agenda for generations to come.

“Neither economists nor market participants, nor indeed governments foresaw a financial crisis of the type and magnitude we have now. The collapse of trust and subsequent credit freeze in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse was a shock.”

The 2011 Green Growth Strategy provided initial guidance to governments on how to achieve economic growth and development, while preventing costly environmental damage and inefficient resource use. What progress have countries made in aligning economic and environmental priorities since 2011?

Read the latest blog by Patrick Paul Walsh, Professor of International Development Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland and Senior Advisor, UN SDSN, Earth Institute, on the Implications of the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda for the OECD.

The Paris Agreement on climate change signals the end of business as usual for energy industries. For the first time in history more than 150 developed and developing countries have promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But how binding are these agreements? And do they provide impetus for local action in Africa?

The capital city of Karnataka is prepping to host the biggest entertainment event at KTPO Convention Centre in Whitefield on 12-13 November 2016.

Gains in female education attainment have contributed to a worldwide increase in women’s participation in the labour force, but considerable gaps remain in working hours, conditions of employment and earnings.  More specific data for Germany are available in this country note.

Selected findings for Germany from the report "The Pursuit of Gender Equality: An Uphill Battle"

The German standard VAT rate is 19.0%, which is close to the OECD average. The average VAT/GST¹ standard rate in the OECD was 19.3% as of 1 January 2019. The previous standard VAT rate in Germany was 16% in 2006. It changed to the current level in 2007. Germany applies a reduced rate of 7% to a number of goods and services.

Breaking down barriers to gender equality in education, employment and entrepreneurship would create new sources of economic growth and help make better use of everyone’s skills, according to a new OECD report.

Getting more women into work is a priority goal of G20 policy, but gender inequality is a barrier. To overcome this, the OECD, ILO and others have identified ways forward.

Leaders of the G20 countries meeting at their Summit in Brisbane, Australia, have called on the OECD and IMF to monitor their commitment to boost economic growth and create jobs.

Education systems have made major strides to close gender gaps in student performance but girls and boys remain deeply divided in career choices, which are being made much earlier than commonly thought, according to a new OECD report.

Income inequality has reached record highs in most OECD countries and remains at even higher levels in many emerging economies. The richest 10 per cent of the population in the OECD now earn 9.6 times the income of the poorest 10 per cent, up from 7:1 in the 1980s and 9:1 in the 2000s, according to a new OECD report.

OECD analyses have begun to understand the relationship between digitalisation, jobs and skills, the magnitude of potential job substitution due to technological change, the relationship between globalisation and wage polarisation, as well as the changes to the organisation of work.

Prince William did it, Justin Timberlake did it, and so did David Cameron and Mark Zuckerberg. All four took paternity leave to spend time with babies George, Charlotte, Silas, Florence and Max. These trailblazers are great role models in combining family and work–at least when a new baby arrives–but men around the world are still too slow in following their example.

Despite unprecedented progress over the past century, gender gaps in the labour market persist throughout the world and are especially marked in emerging economies. While the quantity of jobs held by women has increased in many countries, female workers continue to have worse jobs than men.

Despite unprecedented progress over the past century, gender gaps in the labour market persist throughout the emerging world and are accompanied by important skill gaps. Women tend to perform worse in STEM subjects, have lower financial literacy and business knowledge than men. The OECD Employment Outlook 2016 paints an up-to-date picture of gender gaps in 16 emerging economies and outlines a comprehensive set of policy recommendations.

Widespread increases in inequality over the past three decades have raised the question of the distribution of the growth dividends.

Lending volumes and credit conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have gradually improved, according to a new report from the OECD, but demand-side obstacles such as a lack of financial knowledge are contributing to holding back a stronger recovery.

The family-friendly policies introduced by Nordic countries over the past 50 years and associated increases in female employment have boosted growth in GDP per capita by between 10% and 20%, according to a new OECD report.

The OECD has launched an online public consultation on the draft Recommendation on Public Service Leadership and Capability. Governments, recruitment managers, human resource officials, international organisations, academics and individuals are encouraged to participate in this consultation and help shape the future of employment and leadership in the public sector. Deadline is the 14 September 2018.

Today, global leaders from governments, private sector companies, trade unions and civil society pledged to take concrete action towards closing the gender pay gap by 2030. The global commitments – to ensure women in every sector of the workforce are paid equally to men for doing work of equal value – were made at the Equal Pay International Coalition (EPIC) Pledging event held during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

The Municipality of Hermosillo in Mexico shows a 12% progress in the implementation of OECD recommendations to simplify formalities to boost entrepreneurship and create employment.

The second progress report in the implementation of regulatory improvement actions shows a 52% progress for the Municipality of Hermosillo.

The Municipality of Torreon has reached 49% progress in implementing the 267 recommendations delivered by OECD to improve its regulatory framework.

OECD work on the independence of regulators and how to protect them from undue influence. Information includes new data from a survey of 48 regulators across the world.

Norway has made significant progress in its efforts against the bribery of foreign public officials in recent years, according to a new OECD report. But more could be done to strengthen enforcement, including by focusing on the confiscation from companies of the proceeds of bribery.

The Phase 3 Report on Italy by the OECD Working Group on Bribery evaluates and makes recommendations on Italy's implementation and application of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and related instruments.

The Phase 3 Report on Switzerland by the OECD Working Group on Bribery evaluates and makes recommendations on Switzerland 's implementation and application of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and related instruments.

France should intensify its efforts to combat the bribery of foreign public officials. Only five convictions – of which one, under appeal, involves a company – have been handed down in twelve years.

Die OECD-Arbeitsgruppe gegen Bestechung bedauert, dass in Österreich bisher noch kein Urteil wegen der Bestechung von ausländischen Amtsträgern ergangen ist, obwohl seit der Ratifizierung des entsprechenden OECD-Übereinkommens vor 13 Jahren eine Reihe von Vorwürfen vorlag.

Georgia has achieved significant progress in reducing corruption over the past decade. To build on this progress, the Government should focus on strengthening its professional civil service and ensure independence of the judiciary, according to a new OECD report.

The OECD Working Group on Bribery supports Spain’s efforts to further reform its Penal Code to bring its anti-bribery law into line with its international obligations under the OECD Convention on Combatting Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.

Paris, 8 March 2017: Taking place on International Women's Day, this OECD-hosted conference considered questions such as gender differences in financial literacy and inclusion; women working in the informal economy and the role of business: gender differences in the changing pensions landscape; empowering women to fight back against corruption and engaging men to support gender equality in the workplace.

An independent group of leading anti-corruption and integrity experts recommends doing more to enforce and develop anti-corruption standards and enhancing collaboration with other international organisations in a report on ways the OECD can strengthen its vital work in combating bribery and promoting integrity.

This compendium of good practices was prepared by the OECD at the request of the G20 Anti-corruption Working Group (ACWG), to raise awareness of the benefits of the digital transformation in the public sector, including governance, productivity, economic development and social innovation.

The OECD Anti-Bribery is the first and only international anti-corruption instrument focused on the ‘supply side’ of the bribery transaction. To ensure that it continues to respond to the challenges of fighting foreign bribery, the OECD has launched a review of the 2009 OECD Recommendation for Further Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Anti-Bribery Recommendation).

Governments should increase investment in early childhood programmes and maintain reasonable costs for higher education in order to reduce inequality, boost social mobility and improve people’s employment prospects, according to a new OECD report.

This seminar will provide an opportunity for participants to share experiences on issues such as the influence of accelerated commercialization of education and a knowledge-based society.

The higher the level of education, the higher the salary cost of teachers per student. In Belgium (Flemish Community), France and Spain, the difference in the annual salary cost between the primary and upper secondary levels of education exceeds USD 1 800 in 2010.

Successful education systems guarantee that all students succeed at high levels. As this month’s PISA in Focus notes, some school systems not only do well on international assessments, like PISA, they also manage to minimise the difference between the best- and poorest-performing students.

In most OECD countries, newly arrived 15-year-old immigrant students show poorer reading performance than immigrant students who arrived in their new country when they were younger than five.

ICT has influenced almost all aspects of our lives and has changed the way we communicate, work and socialize. Education plays a key role in ensuring that everyone can reap the benefits of our technology-rich world, as well as help mitigate some of the risks.

Education systems have made major strides to close gender gaps in student performance but girls and boys remain deeply divided in career choices, which are being made much earlier than commonly thought, according to a new OECD report.

Gender differences still exist in certain fields, with more men studying science, computing and engineering, and with women dominating education and health and welfare.

To mark International Women’s Day the OECD released an impressive new analysis on gender and education.

TALIS 2013 finds that in many countries, new teachers (with less than five years’ teaching experience) are more likely to work in challenging schools than more experienced teachers.

Did you ever wonder if education has a role to play in stemming the obesity epidemic sweeping across all OECD countries? Or what the impact of increasing urbanisation might be on our schools, families, and communities?

There is no real consensus on how much class time is enough when it comes to learning mathematics, science and reading. But educators and policy makers generally agree that while it’s important for students to spend considerable time in school lessons to acquire new skills, spending more hours and minutes in class is not enough to ensure that students succeed in school.