In 2015 the Lithuanian government launched an ambitious Social Model reform agenda aimed at balancing flexibility of the labour market and security provided through the system of social protection.

Today’s education systems need to adapt practices to local diversity while ensuring common goals.

In a majority of OECD countries, GDP growth over the past three decades has been associated with growing income disparities.

This document describes and discusses a new supply side framework that quantifies the impact of structural reforms on per capita income in OECD countries.

The Portuguese economy is gradually recovering from a deep recession thanks to a broad structural reform agenda that has led to rising economic growth, falling unemployment and remarkable progress in export performance.

Wales should continue its efforts to reform the curriculum and raise the standards of teaching in order to improve the quality and equity of its school system, according to a new OECD report.

How Wales can ensure the successful implementation of its reforms (OECD Education Today Blog)

Ukraine has taken ambitious steps to tackle bribery and corruption across government, including public procurement and, law enforcement. It should now step up its efforts to tackle integrity risks and violations in education, such as unmerited grades, misappropriated school funds, and preferential access to schools and study programmes - according to a new OECD report.

Brazil’s old-age pensions have reduced old-age poverty below OECD levels, but pension expenditures of 8.2% of GDP are expected to rise rapidly as the population ages. A pension reform is necessary to ensure the financial sustainability of the system.

The Dutch education system and the skills of the Dutch population are very strong overall. But there are concerns that too many people in the Netherlands are not developing the “right” skills to succeed or taking sufficient responsibility for maintaining and further developing their skills in adulthood.

In an increasingly competitive international environment, providing workers with the right mix of skills can help ensure that globalisation translates into new jobs and productivity gains rather than negative economic and social outcomes, according to a new OECD report.

In most countries with available data, public educational institutions charge different tuition fees for national and foreign students enrolled in the same programme. In Australia, Austria, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, foreign students pay on average about twice or more the tuition fees charged to national students.

In 2014, over 3 million students in OECD countries – more than double the amount in 2000 – were studying outside their country of citizenship.

Education has transformed over the last 20 years from being a means to an end to becoming a change agent on the battleground to improve the life chances of all individuals, regardless of where they live, their economic status, gender, ability or religious persuasion. Education has been revitalised as the gateway for equal opportunity.

Tertiary enrolment is expanding rapidly, with very strong returns for individuals and taxpayers, but new evidence shows that universities can fail to offer, and individuals fail to pursue, the fields of study that promise the greatest labour-market opportunities, according to a new OECD report.

It’s an exciting time for education in Wales. This was noted by the OECD earlier this year, when it recognised that government and sector are working closely together with a commitment to improvements that are “visible at all levels of the education system”.

Full and effective implementation of recent reforms, including the Jobs Act and the Good Schools reform, would help boost growth in Italy by improving people’s skills and ensuring their more effective use across the country, according to a new OECD report.

Teaching and learning lie at the heart of what it means to be human. While animals teach and learn from each other through direct demonstration, observation and experience, humans are unique in their ability to convey vast quantities of information and impart skills across time and space.

Too many people from disadvantaged backgrounds are falling behind in education and future job market, according to a new OECD report. Educational Opportunity For All says that children, students and adults from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds receive too little support to succeed in school and in learning opportunities later in life.

Recent reforms of Italy’s education system (“Buona Scuola”), labour market (“Jobs Act”) and industrial policy (“Industria 4.0”) have clear synergies and could reduce worrying imbalances between the supply and demand of skills on the Italian labour market, according to the new OECD report Getting Skills Right: Italy.

Several government hospitals denied admission to Suresh, an auto-driver in Bengaluru, before a Twitter user highlighted his ordeal and prompted the DIPR to provide help.

The finding could explain several mysteries, including why children are unlikely to die from COVID-19.

This report compares urbanisation trends on the basis of a common methodology which helps cross-country comparison of the socio-economic and environmental performance of metropolitan areas in 28 OECD countries.

The Regional Growth Core Schönefelder Kreuz and the Technical University of Applied Sciences Wildau in partnership with the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development Programme (LEED) are working on defining and collecting measurable indicators at the regional/ local level that can inform over time of transition to low-carbon economic and industrial activities.

This project aims to support the Slovak Republic as it seeks to create a clear rationale for the Regional Development Agencies Integrated Network which currently comprises 38 agencies.

LEED and Cedefop organise the second edition of the Green Skills Forum which will bring together experts in innovation, employability and skills development and lessons from work conducted by the OECD, Cedefop, and other organisations on the implications of the green economy for skills development and training policies.

Recommendation of the OECD Council on Effective Public Investment Across Levels of Government

The Netherlands is gradually emerging from a double-dip recession with strengthened public finances and reforms on track to improve the labour and housing markets and the health care and pension systems. These reforms are paying off, says the OECD. Growth is expected to reach 1% this year and 1.3% in 2015.

A series of short reports aimed at policy makers examine issues and policies instruments related to inclusive entrepreneurs policy. The key message of these briefs is that there is under-exploited potential among entrepreneurs from non-mainstream groups and that there are many examples of specially tailored policies that are successful in increasing participation that can serve as models for others.

“What is the city but the people?” asked Shakespeare in Coriolanus. All city planning focuses on people and the quality of life. The big cities in Brazil took shape from the 1950s, when the country’s population amounted to approximately 52 million inhabitants, only 36.2% of whom lived in cities.

Japan must make revitalising growth its number one priority with reforms to boost productivity and encourage more women and older people into jobs to compensate for its rapidly shrinking labour force, according to the OECD.

The OECD LEED Programme launches this "Call for Initiatives" to extract what local authorities and other actors know works, what the new scenario is demanding and how equipped they are to respond. We are interested in learning from the experiences of EU member countries, the wider OECD area as well as other countries.

This document presents draft principles for leveraging local benefits from global sporting events. These draft principles have been prepared as part of a project on optimising the local benefits from hosting the EURO 2016. They build upon previous work on Local Development Benefits from Staging Global Events.

The city of Newcastle is fast emerging as a smart, liveable and sustainable city.

In advance of the 2024 Paris Olympics, OECD ministers have agreed the first international framework to help design and manage major events in order to maximise their potential to create jobs, boost local development and generate long-term benefits for citizens and the environment.

This Guidance Document describes how applicants could demonstrate that a proposed new pool and spa disinfectant would satisfy the regulator’s efficacy criteria. While meeting the performance characteristics can be expected to satisfy the regulator’s efficacy requirements, the regulator may choose to consider alternative scientific information and argument aimed at satisfying the efficacy criteria.

This document provides guidance on conducting laboratory tests to determine and assess the efficacy of test substances and/or the effectiveness of test products used as baits for the control of cockroach species in indoor environments.

This biocide document provides guidance on the conduct of laboratory and field tests aimed to assess the efficacy of anti-ants baits for indoor use. A bait contains one or more insecticidal active ingredients combined with food for garden ants.

The Gefahrstoffdatenbank der Länder, a german database, is now linked to eChemPortal. 102545 substance records can be searched through the substance search. This includes German hazardous substances legislation as well as other sources reflecting the state of technology and occupational health and safety relating to activities involving hazardous substances. In addition, it contains links to various other German data bases.

The OECD/UNEP Global PFC group has published two new reports to support efforts in the framework of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) to improve information sharing at a global level on perfluorinated chemistries.

German database Information system für gefährliche Stoffe IGS is now linked to eChemPortal. The IGS provides public access to a variety of information on chemical and microbiological substances mostly in German. The focus is on regulatory information reflecting German and European, as well as Swiss, US and selected other legislation and assessments. Beside this, information on substance data and emergency procedures is available.

France has improved its environmental performance over the last decade, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, reducing some air pollutants and cutting its use of fresh water. Further effort will be needed, however, to reduce pollution by nitrates and pesticides and meet ambitious renewable energy targets, according to a new OECD report.

The OECD Guidelines for the Testing of Chemicals is a collection of about 150 of the most relevant internationally agreed testing methods used by government, industry and independent laboratories to identify and characterise potential hazards of chemicals. Every year new and updated Test Guidelines are adopted to meet the regulatory needs in OECD member countries. The most recent Test Guidelines were adopted in July 2016.

Participants from 15 countries attended the Workshop on Developmental Neurotoxicity: The use of non-animal test methods for regulatory purposes” on 18 October 2016, in Belgium. The event, co-organised by the OECD and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), focused on opportunities and challenges related to alternative methods for testing and assessing the DNT potential of chemicals.

This paper reviews and compares five case studies on quantification and economic valuation of benefits in cost-benefit analyses (CBAs) of regulating phthalates, mercury, PFOA (perfluoro-octanic acid) and its salts, NMP (1 methyl-2-pyrroloidine) and formaldehyde. The case studies had all been carried out as part of the SACAME project, and the purpose of the present paper is to draw out cross-cutting findings from these studies.

A country’s values come into focus when seen by an outsider, contrasting them with his native country

How the former banker stumbled into the top job eight years ago — and never left

Plans to overhaul the insurer, fixing problems and redefining its customer service

Former head of UK Sport has set sights on winning the World Cup

Use your tax allowances to maximise the returns from your investments