This workshop is to discuss the policy relevance of inequalities in the access to services in regions and cities, including the institutional and territorial organization for service delivery.

Italy’s policy of fiscal consolidation and growth-friendly structural reforms has substantially improved its economic prospects, but the adverse sentiment that the country has faced in the sovereign bond market over the past years has deep roots.

Today’s post is by Arthur Mickoleit of the OECD’s Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development. Inputs from Kareen Schramm and Sofia Varas of Chile’s Ministry General‑Secretariat of the Presidency are gratefully acknowledged.

On 19 September 1893 New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to grant the right to vote to all adult women. New Zealand's Permanent Representative to the OECD Rosemary Banks says the 120th anniversary of this decision is an time to reflect on that achievement.

This workshop served to discuss how benchmarking and measuring regulatory performance can help advance a regulatory policy at the sub-national level.

Today’s post is from Kate Lancaster, editor in charge of publications on government finance at the OECD. Government budgets are news. Tough choices have had to be made in these challenging economic times and we’re all interested in how our governments are managing our money.

The global economic crisis has had a profound impact on people’s well-being, reaching far beyond the loss of jobs and income, and affecting citizens’ satisfaction with their lives and their trust in governments, according to a new OECD report.

This report assesses progress in the implementation of regulatory policy within the MENA region and highlights good practices from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority and Tunisia.

The report "Regulatory Reform in the Middle East and North Africa" assesses progress in the implementation of regulatory policy within the MENA region and highlights good practices from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority and Tunisia.

Wikiprogress online discussion on Latin America entitled "Quality Urban Life: How to make it a reality?".

The metropolitan region of Aix-Marseille in the south of France needs to tackle its fragmentated governance if it is to return to more inclusive and sustainable economic growth, according to a new OECD report.

How can we earn back the trust of young people? Improving openness, transparency, accountability, and access to information is essential. On the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day and Transparency International’s 20th Anniversary, the OECD and Transparency International are inviting young people for a discussion about how to push the integrity agenda forward together.

Using panel data for OECD countries, this study investigates the extent to which changes in government spending on education, health and other areas influence long-term growth.

Strengthening OECD firewalls can only do so much to combat a phenomenon which thrives on weak governance. This report highlights that donor agencies can support this goal through their central role in linking OECD and developing countries, and using their aid to support governments willing to tackle these issues.

This blog, written by David Satterthwaite with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), discusses what indicators are needed in order to assess the quality of life of the urban poor.

Japanese users of the Better Life Index (BLI) worry most about safety, Australians seek work-life balance, Latin Americans strive for better education, and Danes want to be happy – user feedback shows as the Index marks its third birthday.

Workshop held in The Hague on 17-18 June 2014 to evaluate stakeholder engagement in regulatory policy

Latin American and Caribbean countries need to do more to improve budget management, tax collection and public sector pay equality if they are to catch up with advanced economies in terms of government performance, according to a joint report by the OECD and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

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.

Jointly organised by the OECD, Duke University and IRGC, this international conference will identify, evaluate and discuss the relevance and effectiveness of new approaches to improving risk governance, both as they result from responding to and learning from crises, and as deliberate innovations in how regulatory power is exercised and shared.

Korea has made significant progress towards decentralising the management of employment and training programmes, but can still do more to create stronger links with employers at the local level, according to a new OECD report.

While the outlook for many OECD countries remains subdued, Emerging Asia is set for healthy growth over the medium term. Annual GDP growth for the ASEAN -10, China and India is forecast to average 6.5% over 2015-19. Growth momentum remains robust in the 10 ASEAN countries, with economic growth averaging 5.6% over 2015-19.

The OECD Conference on Innovating the Public Sector: From Ideas to Impact on 12-13 November 2014 will bring together public sector practitioners, researchers, civil society and businesses to discuss how innovation can help solve today's complex challenges.

Report finds that some Korean policies, such as urban regeneration, new town development or multi-modal transferring centres, have implicitly implemented compact city polices to a certain degree. However, there are still issues - including urban sprawl, unbalanced socio-economic levels and environmental challenges - which can be threats to urban competitiveness.

This chapter begins with a brief socio-economic and institutional overview of the Daejeon metropolitan region. It then explores the current status of inter-municipal collaboration in two major sectors for urban development: transport and land use. Finally, it reviews existing metropolitan collaboration tools.

Meeting focusing on challenges on gender sensitive policies and gender budgeting in MENA region. Delegates will also discuss the progress to date on legal reforms in advancing gender equality and promoting women’s political participation in the region.

This conference provided a multi-disciplinary forum to discuss issues of regulatory reform involving both government and non-government actors.

The OECD Secretary-General, Mr. Angel Gurría, chaired several high-level panels; the OECD actively participated through a series of events, the launch of four new reports and by taking part in a number of workshops and seminars throughout the forum. ‌

Financial crises do more than impose huge costs: they have bigger and more insidious effects. We face big challenges in maintaining the supply of global public goods as the world integrates. But these challenges will not be managed successfully if we do not first overcome the legacy of the crisis.

This report shows that cities in advanced economies are growing older more quickly than rural areas. In OECD cities, 14% of people were over 65 in 2011 up from 12% in 2001. The trend will put pressure on cities to rethink some infrastructure and plan for an ageing labour force, change in revenue lower tax revenues, rising demand for social housing and higher spending on health and social care.

Ensuring that permanent spending or tax cuts are implemented in a sustainable manner would encourage the strong fiscal position that New Zealand needs to meet potentially large macroeconomic shocks and long-run ageing-related costs.

There are concrete steps that can be taken in achieving a culture of integrity. To achieve this, we work with countries to adopt a whole-of-society approach. That means all stakeholders, public, private and civil society, must work together to make it happen.

Blog post reviewing the recent trends in the use of social media by governments. The article includes a look at the the top 30 government Twitter a/c's and the fastest growing accounts.

Healthcare costs are rising so fast in advanced economies that they will become unaffordable by mid-century without reforms, according to a new OECD report.

Digital security risk should be treated as an economic rather than a technical issue, and should be part of an organisation’s overall risk management and decision-making, according to a new OECD Recommendation to member countries.

TThe economic literature suggests that a revenue-neutral shift of tax revenues from income taxes to property taxes would increase GDP per capita in the medium term. This paper analyses for Ireland the consequences of such a shift in the tax mix.

This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to assess the efficiency of welfare spending in a sample of OECD countries around 2012, focussing on health care, secondary education and general public services.

OECD countries have agreed to work towards greater gender equality in public life – including in governments, parliaments and judiciaries – with concrete measures to improve women’s access to leadership and decision-making roles and integrate more of a gender perspective into public policies.

Paris, 8 March 2016: Organised on International Women's Day, the OECD hosted a conference to consider policy approaches to closing leadership gender gaps in the public and corporate sectors.

Blog examining how corruption can have a negative impact on citizens health, and underlines the difficulties of controlling trade networks and examines how illicit trade continues to evolve.

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.

Imports of counterfeit and pirated goods are worth nearly half a trillion dollars a year, or around 2.5% of global imports, with US, Italian and French brands the hardest hit and many of the proceeds going to organised crime, according to a new report by the OECD and the EU’s Intellectual Property Office.

Internet access and use is growing in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), but the region needs to move faster in adding broadband infrastructure, expanding access and services and equipping people with the right skills for firms and households to fully benefit, according to a new OECD report.

Mexico has become a frontrunner in a short time in making government data publicly accessible, but it now needs to put this wealth of digital information to use to foster innovation and benefit the Mexican economy and society, according to a new OECD report.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, and the 2008 financial meltdown—whose aftershocks are still reverberating globally—have at least one trait in common: they reflected breakdowns in the regulatory process. This is not to say that the principal industry actors in both catastrophes were mere bystanders, but with better regulatory oversight, the disasters could have been prevented.

To achieve a euro area fiscal stance that fosters the recovery, countries with fiscal space under the Stability and Growth Pact rules should use budgetary support to raise growth, and existing incentives and flexibility should be taken advantage of to pursue reforms of tax and spending policies.

The global economy remains in a low-growth trap. In our latest Interim Economic Outlook global GDP growth is set to remain flat around 3% in 2016 and improve modestly to 3.2% in 2017.

The OECD and the Greek Government, with the support of the European Commission, today launched a collaboration project to strengthen Greece’s action plan to fight corruption.

OECD will measure the impact of digitalising the Mexican Social Security Institute formalities and guide future efforts on simplification

Mayors and local leaders from around the world launched today a plan of action to help tackle inequality, boost job creation and harness economic development.