Regional Capacity Building Seminar on Regulatory Tools and Policies, Tunis, Tunisia, 15 February 2007

This meeting was organised by the OECD Secretariat and hosted by Tunisia (chair of the Working Group IV) as part of the activities of WG IV of the Good Governance for Development (GfD) in Arab countries Initiative.

Participation

The meeting was opened by Mr. Takari, Minister of Justice and Human Rights of Tunisia, and Mr. M'Dhaffar, Tunisian Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in charge of civil service and administrative development and chair of the Working Group IV, draw the final conclusions of the seminar. Both Ministers expressed their strong support and appreciation of the work done in the framework of the GfD Initiative.
Ten Arab countries and twelve OECD countries were represented at this seminar, as well as the European Commission and the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC): About 150 senior officials and experts from Algeria, Bahrain, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, Jordan, Ireland, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, Norway, the Netherlands, Oman, the Palestinian National Authority, Portugal, the Syrian Arab Republic, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Kingdom attended the capacity-building seminar.
The participating policy makers, academics and experts from the judiciary provided different aspects of expertise in regard to regulatory tools and policies, as the host of the meeting, M. Zouhair Skander, Head of the Centre for Legal and Judicial Studies of the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, highlighted.

Objectives

The aim of this regional capacity-building seminar was to encourage policy dialogue within the region and with OECD member countries by bringing together policy experts from both Arab and OECD countries to discuss regulatory tools and policies. The network of officials was expanded to incentive international collaboration in the future. The seminar focused on how to improve and implement tools and policies for regulatory quality – a topic that has been highlighted as a priority issue by Arab countries in the course of the GfD Initiative.

Policy Dialogue

The seminar was divided into four sessions, each chaired by Arab participants. OECD and Arab countries presented their experiences, innovative efforts and good practices on three key issues:
1) Preconditions for implementing regulatory quality from a legal and an economic perspective. Participants explored principles to ensure that regulation is a positive element in the process of public sector development.
2) Policies and institutions to improve regulatory quality and the integration of regulatory reform in the policy making process. Participants highlighted the importance of training and regulatory quality guidelines and expressed their support to the efforts of the Focus Group for Regulatory Reform of WG IV to produce a Regional Charter for Regulatory Quality.
3) Regulatory tools and mechanisms, especially regulatory impact assessment (RIA) and administrative simplification.
RIA was repeatedly presented as a regulatory tool to guide policy makers in the effective implications of their decisions, in particular at the beginning of the legislative process. As essential components of RIA, several policy experts pointed out a series of principles to be respected in order to justify and to improve government action: necessity, transparency, proportionality, legality and simplicity.

Outcomes

Major outcomes of the meeting include:
• Participants confirmed their commitment and support to the Good Governance in Arab Countries Initiative and emphasised the benefits of the regional policy dialogue.
• Participants shared their experiences on regulatory tools and policies both in OECD and Arab countries. The meeting facilitated contacts between government officials and strengthened the cooperation between the delegates to the Working Group IV.
• Political support at highest level to future work of Working Group IV was expressed by the Ministers attending the seminar. Tunisia highlighted its interest in conducting RIA pilot projects, to support the Regional Declaration of Regulatory Quality and to intensify work on public service delivery.

Documentation

• Agenda (English, French)
• Participants List

Session 2: Policies to improve regulatory quality

• Greece: Regulatory Impact Assessment in Greece
• United Kingdom: Role of oversight bodies for regulatory reform
• Mexico: Policies to improve regulatory quality: the Mexican case
• Yemen: Regulatory reform and improving the quality of legislations in Yemen

Session 3: Regulatory tools and mechanisms to improve regulatory quality

• United Kingdom: Introduction to Regulatory Impact Assessment
• Ireland: Regulatory Impact Analysis in Ireland
• Greece: The Greek program for better regulation: the Greek action plan

• Turkey: Regulatory reform and RIA implementation in Turkey
• Belgium: Evaluation administrative et réglementaire en Belgique
• Egypt: Administrative Simplification beyond technology

Background Documentation:

• Trilingual Glossary of Terms for Regulatory Reform (عربي - English – French)
• Oversight Bodies for Regulatory Reform
• Regulatory Impact Analysis in OECD Countries: Challenges for Developing Countries (English, French,
عربي)
• Regulatory Impact Assessment Pilot Projects
• Policy Brief on Tools to Initiate Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA)
• OECD Policy Brief: Cutting Red Tape: National Strategies (English, French)
• Public Consultation