Helping the unemployed and getting economies moving again were among the most pressing issues on the table at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh on 24-25 September 2009.
Interview: from Pittsburgh, Angel Gurria talks about what an exit strategy from the financial crisis entails.
“Employment is the bottom line in the current crisis,”said OECD Secretary-General. “We cannot claim victory simply because we see indicators of recovery picking up and we should not just assume that growth will take care of this.”
In employment policy and across the range of global challenges to be discussed in Pittsburgh, the OECD is already providing policy advice and analysis to governments.
Since the launch of our Strategic Response to the Crisis, the OECD has been supporting the G20 on issues such as labour, investment, taxes, business ethics and trade finance.
If the recovery fails to gain momentum, 57 million people could be out of work in OECD countries by 2010. The OECD’s Employment Outlook 2009 argues for a co-ordinated policy response to the crisis by reinforcing social safety nets and enhancing activation policies such as training and job search assistance.
Young people are likely to be hit hardest by the worsening job market. Jobs for Youth: France is the latest in a series of reports looking at youth unemployment in specific countries. OECD work on measuring educational and skills attainment (the PISA and PIAAC programmes) is concerned with equipping people for the 21st century economy – a key topic on the Pittsburgh agenda.
Through its analysis and peer review process, the OECD has developed a comprehensive range of strategies to restore economic growth through structural reforms and innovation. The OECD is also looking at the effectiveness of the emergency stimulus measures, their impact on public finances and at how they can be unwound in the future.
Bolstering economic confidence requires an ethical and transparent climate for business and government and a level playing field for investment. It requires good governance, with coordinated initiatives to promote corporate responsibility and financial education, and to fight bribery and corruption.
Many countries are looking to "Green growth" that is sustainable and creates jobs as a way out of the crisis. The OECD has started working on a green growth strategy to promote clean technologies as a way both of reinforcing economic activity and of protecting the environment.
Innovation, the bedrock of a dynamic economy, will be crucial to achieving green growth. The OECD is looking at the conditions required to stimulate and maintain innovation – particularly in science and technology. Results will be developed into an innovation strategy.
The OECD is looking at the costs of tackling the rise in greenhouse gas emissions. The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation estimates that if a proper global carbon market is developed in the next decade, it would cost just one-tenth of a percent of average world annual GDP growth between 2012 and 2050 to achieve moderately ambitious climate targets. A first step could be to remove fossil fuel subsidies, a policy measure which analysis by the OECD and the International Energy Agency estimates could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 10% in 2050 compared to business as usual, while increasing economic efficiency. It argues that governments must fight the temptation to exempt certain energy-intensive industries from full compliance with carbon pricing scheme.
Providing government-backed finance to help exporters is seen as an important way of stimulating trade. The OECD is hosting regular meetings to exchange information and monitor progress in the 36 countries which have agreed to co-ordinate export credit policy to help boost trade and investment during the crisis.
The number of malnourished people around the world is estimated to rise to nearly one billion this year as the crisis takes its toll on developing countries. How to ensure food security for the world’s poor both during the current crisis and over the long-term was the subject of a high-level meeting organised jointly by the OECD and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in May 2009.
The OECD monitors development aid and helps design policies to ensure it is effective in relieving poverty and in making developing economies more resilient.
Across the OECD area, the number of men in employment has fallen by 3% during the recession; among women, the decline is just a tenth of that, or 0.3%.
