By Date

The government of Kazakhstan has shown a strong commitment to enhancing transparency, accountability and participation in the policy-making process, and has taken important steps towards implementing open government. However, further efforts are need to ensure the success and long-term sustainability of Kazakhstan’s open government reforms. This review provides an overview of the cultural, economic, historical and political context for open government reforms. It examines ongoing efforts, identifies the remaining challenges and assesses the measures put in place by Kazakhstan’s authorities to address them in order to translate the reforms into tangible results. Finally, the report looks at the environment for effective citizen engagement and its potential to improve service delivery and policy making. It provides recommendations for concrete actions Kazakhstan can take to fully implement open government reforms.

Cette publication examine les possibilités et les défis que présentent pour les entreprises et les pouvoirs publics les technologies qui préparent l’avènement de la « prochaine révolution de la production », à savoir diverses technologies numériques (p. ex., l’internet des objets et la robotique avancée), les biotechnologies industrielles, l’impression 3D, les nouveaux matériaux et les nanotechnologies. Certaines de ces technologies sont déjà présentes dans les processus de production, d’autres seront accessibles sous peu. Mais toutes se développent rapidement. À mesure qu’elles transformeront les activités de production et de distribution des biens et services, elles auront une influence considérable sur la productivité, les compétences, la distribution des revenus, le bien-être et l’environnement. Mieux les pouvoirs publics et les entreprises sauront appréhender cette transformation prochaine de la production, mieux ils seront à même d’en maîtriser les risques et d’en concrétiser les avantages.

Kazakhstan has made important gains in gender equality over the past decade, but gaps still remain. This OECD Review of Gender Policy Delivery in Kazakhstan comes at a moment when Kazakhstan is developing a new Gender Equality and Family Policy up to 2030 which seeks to enable equality of rights, benefits, responsibilities, and opportunities for men and women in all areas of social life, and eliminate all forms of gender discrimination. This review examines the institutional, policy-making and accountability frameworks for advancing and sustaining gender equality and mainstreaming initiatives. It provides actionable policy recommendations based on international good practice and the highest standards of performance, with a view to supporting Kazakhstan’s new policy.

Chile’s planning and governance framework has supported the roll-out of high quality and efficient infrastructure that has been a key enabler of the country’s rapid development over the past two decades. However, changing circumstances such as climate change, decentralisation and a greater focus on social and territorial equity now require a change in how infrastructure needs are identified and addressed. This review examines Chile’s infrastructure stock and governance standards in light of the country’s 2030 growth agenda and OECD benchmarks, and sets out how such change can be achieved, with a special focus on transport and water infrastructure.

In 2014, the OECD carried out work to take stock of OECD countries' achievements in building resilience to major natural and man-made disasters. The report suggested that albeit significant achievements were made through effective risk prevention and mitigation management, past disasters have revealed persistent vulnerabilities and gaps in risk prevention management across OECD. Based on the findings of this OECD-wide report, a cross-country comparative study was undertaken in Austria, France and Switzerland to test the recommendations put forward in specific country contexts. This report summarises the individual and comparative country case study findings. It highglights that the risk prevention policy mix has shifted in favor of organisational measures such as hazard informed land use planning or strengthening the enforcement of risk sensitive regulations. In the meantime, the great need for maintaining the large stock of structural protection measures has been overlooked and vulnerability might increase because of that. The report highlights the need for better policy evaluation to increase the effectiveness of risk prevention measures in the future. The report highlights practices where countries succeeded to make risk prevention a responsibility of the whole of government and the whole of society, by analysing supporting governance and financing arrangements.

Integrity is crucial in order to ensure sustainable peace in Colombia. This report provides a focused analysis of Colombia’s integrity system, addressing existing gaps and elaborating policy recommendations on how to build a coherent public integrity system. The review pays special attention to improving co-ordination at the national level and with the regions, cultivating a culture of integrity in the public administration, and enabling effective accountability through internal control and risk management. It emphasises the priority of mainstreaming integrity policies in the processes and sectors related to the implementation of the Peace Agreement to prevent corruption and to contribute to the inclusive and sustainable development of the country.

This report discusses the main results of a study on how to reduce air pollution from urban public transport in Kazakhstan. More specifically, it presents the analysis of how to design a green public investment programme in this sector. This sector represents an opportunity for Kazakhstan to address key objectives in its environmental and climate-related policies as part of the country’s ambitions to transit to a green economic path of development. In addition to supporting environmental and climate-related objectives, the programme is designed to support the modernisation of the urban transport fleet in the country as well as stimulate the domestic market to shift to modern buses powered by clean fuels.

The programme is designed to be implemented in two phases: Phase 1 which covers the cities of Kostanay and Shymkent; and Phase 2 which extends the coverage to all major urban centres in Kazakhstan. Two scenarios for the implementation of the second (extended) phase of the programme are developed. Their total cost is estimated to be up to EUR 300 mln. These investments are expected to result in significant air improvement with NOx emissions seeing the greatest decline of up to 2 mln kg/year, whereas CO2 emissions are estimated to decline in an ideal scenario by up to 70 thousand t/year.

The publication Revenue Statistics in Africa is jointly undertaken by the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration and the OECD Development Centre, the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) with funding by the European Union. It compiles comparable tax revenue and non-tax revenue statistics for 16 countries in Africa: Cabo Verde, Cameroon,  the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Swaziland, Togo, Tunisia and Uganda. The model is the OECD Revenue Statistics database which is a fundamental reference, backed by a well-established methodology, for OECD member countries. Extending the OECD methodology to African countries enables comparisons of tax-to-GDP ratios and tax structures on a consistent basis, both among African economies and with OECD, Latin American, Caribbean and Asian economies.

This report applies the PAFER to Mexico’s Energy Regulatory Commission and assesses its functions, practices and behaviour. It focuses on internal governance, including structures and processes for decision making, managing financial resources, attracting and retaining talent, managing data and assessing performance. The review identifies a number of challenges and opportunities for improvement, and is a companion to reviews of the internal governance of two other Mexican energy regulators, the Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment and the National Hydrocarbons Commission, and the review of the external governance of the country’s energy sector, Driving Peformance of Mexico’s Energy Regulators.
www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/ner.htm

This report applies the PAFER to Mexico’s National Hydrocarbons Commission and assesses its functions, practices and behaviour. It focuses on internal governance, including structures and processes for decision making, managing financial resources, attracting and retaining talent, managing data and assessing performance. The review identifies a number of challenges and opportunities for improvement, and is a companion to reviews of the internal governance of two other Mexican energy regulators, the Agency for Safety, Energy and Environment and the Energy Regulatory Commission, and the review of the external governance of the country’s energy sector, Driving Peformance of Mexico’s Energy Regulators.

www.oecd.org/gov/regulatory-policy/ner.htm