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Fourth Special Session of the OECD Working Party on Regulatory Management and Reform, Paris, France, 20 October 2008

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OECD and Arab delegates attended the fourth Special Session of the OECD Working Party on Regulatory Management and Reform which took place at the OECD headquarters in Paris on 20 October 2008. The meeting was held within the framework of the Good Governance for Development (GfD) in Arab Countries Initiative. The initiative’s Working Group IV on Public Private Partnerships, Public Service Delivery and Regulatory Reform organised this meeting in cooperation with the Working Group II on e-Government and Administrative Simplification, as their mandates and areas of work are highly interlinked. The meeting was chaired by Canada, chair of the OECD Working Party on Regulatory Management and Reform. 
The format of the Special Sessions had been agreed upon by Arab participants to the GfD Initiative at the

First Regional Meeting of Working Group IV in Tunis in June 2005 to share know-how on implementing regulatory reform and to plan further cooperative efforts. The first, second and third Special Sessions took place in Paris on 28 September 2005, 25 April 2006 and 4 May 2007, respectively.
Participation

Approximately 60 participants from 10 Arab and 18 OECD delegations actively participated in this meeting: Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian National Authority, Syria, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States; as well as the European Commission, the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC) and Brazil.

 

Objectives

The main objective of this event was to deepen a common understanding of regulatory management and reform issues across OECD and Arab countries and to make progress within the framework of the GfD Initiative. The meeting aimed to share experiences, ideas and good practices in particular with relation to the key elements of a high quality regulation agenda, namely, law-drafting capacities, administrative simplification and the use of evidence based tools to support policy making.

 

Policy Dialogue

The meeting was opened by Mr. George Redling, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and chair of the OECD Working Party on Regulatory Management and Reform, by the chair of the Working Group IV Mr. Fethi Bdira, Head of the Cabinet at the Prime Ministry in Tunisia, and the new co-chair of Working Group IV Mr. Luigi Carbone, Counsellor of State and Executive Chair of the Better Regulation Unit in Italy.

 

Capacity building for law-drafting

Sound law-drafting contributes to better quality regulatory environments. Discussions underlined the relevance of using plain language to draft clearly, simply and precisely. Capacity building can prepare better legal drafters to observe these precepts. Some of the key elements to be considered for capacity building include:

  1. A whole-of-government approach to identify needs and provide a coherent law-drafting programme. For instance, the Tunisian government has developed a comprehensive legislative programme that is overseen by the Prime Ministry.
  2. Sufficiently resourced institutions built on clear guidelines, manuals and principles. The Ministry of Justice in Lebanon is an example of how institutional ground can be provided to ensure better quality law-drafting. The European Commission’s blue book (English, French) is an example of how to provide guidelines to 35,000 officials who are potentially drafting legislation in a second language and who may not necessarily have a strong legal background.
  3. Coordination to ensure quality drafting among government institutions, as well as with other stakeholders. For instance, Switzerland has set up a forum for legislation to facilitate contacts between the different parts of government involved in the law-drafting process.
  4. Training providing the basis for knowledge and technical-based law-drafting (in particular oriented to officials without a legal background). This can be supported with the use of innovative tools such as ICT, even at an affordable cost, e.g. the SOLON programme in France. Jordan also uses ICT tools and has created an online law database to improve legislative transparency, for which extensive training was provided.
  5. International law and practices as inspiration of domestic approaches. As convergence has been observed between civil and common law in drafting, approaches with shared commonalities to improve capacities can be put forward. Egypt seeks to disseminate practices on law-drafting throughout the MENA region by means of its National Institute for Law-drafting.
    Several delegates highlighted the relevance of considering these issues in complex, multilingual legal drafting backgrounds.

 

Principles of evidence-based approaches to regulatory management
Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA)

Participants explored the benefits of applying evidence based approaches, such as RIA, to examine on solid analytical ground how regulation affects the economy and the society. In recent years, evidence-based approaches have contributed to an improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of regulatory management and the business environment.
Discussions pointed out that sequencing is important to the effective implementation of RIA, which has contributed to better policy making by: increasing transparency of the regulatory system, effectively involving other institutions, better setting and managing of priorities and supporting the harmonisation of existing rules. In addition, RIA serves as a tool to establish clear communication between policy officials and legislators.
Delegates discussed and approved recent work such as the OECD publication “Building an Institutional Framework for Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA): Guidance for Policy Makers” and a draft handbook on how to implement RIA (English, French), addressed to countries that do not systematically apply RIA.

 

Administrative simplification

Administrative simplification strategies are designed to reduce regulatory complexity and uncertainty, cut through red tape, and reduce unnecessary burdens created by bureaucracy and paperwork. Their objective is to promote the rule of law, efficiency and economically enabling environments.
Participants focused on the question how to overcome a number of barriers that hamper the effective development of administrative simplification strategies. Participants underscored the relevance of putting simplification in context, prioritising reforms, applying ICT tools, quantifying administrative burdens, legitimising administrative simplification through public consultation and depoliticising the results of reform. They discussed and approved the paper “Overcoming Barriers to Administrative Simplification Strategies. OECD and MENA Dialogue: Guidance for Policy-Makers”.
Participating delegates suggested enforcing the interconnection between the three policy areas of regulatory reform, administrative simplification and e-government. This can be put in practice through increased co-operation between the GfD Working Group II on e-Government and Administrative Simplification and the GfD Working Group IV on PPP, Public Service Delivery and Regulatory Reform. The co-chair of the GfD Working Group II Mr. Vincenzo Schioppa, Minister Plenipotentiary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy, confirmed the support from Italy for future joint activities within the framework of the Good Governance for Development (GfD) in Arab Countries Initiative.

 

Outcomes

  • The fourth Special Session of the OECD Working Party on Regulatory Management and Reform was very productive and ideas were exchanged regarding current projects and future work
    The “project on improving capacities for law-drafting in Arab countries” (English, French) was endorsed. This project aims at understanding the pillars of the creation of high quality regulation: clear, transparent, predictable, effective, efficient, and enforceable. The project will focus on law-drafting mechanisms and institutional design, training efforts, and dissemination of guidelines and manuals for government officials.
    A draft questionnaire for data collection on law-drafting capacities in Arab countries was presented during the special session to delegates for review and written feedback.
  • Italy offered to host an international conference to continue the work in close co-operation of the GfD Working Groups II and IV in the area of regulatory reform, administrative simplification and the use of ICT as a key tool for building good governance for development.
  • The Egyptian delegation proposed to host two capacity building activities on the systematisation of evidence-based policy tools such as RIA, and the review of the stock of legislation with the goal of reducing administrative burdens.
  • The series of publications on “guidance for policy makers” obtained wide support from delegates as a tool for dissemination of good practices in OECD and Arab countries. In the long term, the publications could also be extended to other regions. The first of the series looking at how to build an institutional framework for RIA (English, French) was presented, and the first version of the second volume on how to overcome barriers to administrative simplification strategies was discussed and received general approval.  It is to be revised on the basis of comments and prepared for publication.

 

Documentation

Agenda (English, French)
List of Participants

 

Presentations

Session 1: Capacity Building for Law Drafting

 

Session 2: Principles of evidence based approaches to regulatory management and administrative simplification

 

Session 2/A: Regulatory Impact Analysis

 

Session 2/B: Administrative Simplification

 

Background documents

OECD Sources

 

Other Sources 

 

For more information, please contact Mr. Pedro Andres-Amo at
pedroandresamo@oecd.org

 
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