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Infrastructure worldwide has suffered from chronic under-investment for decades and currently makes up more than 60% of greenhouse gas emissions. A deep transformation of existing infrastructure systems is needed for both climate and development, one that includes systemic conceptual and behavioural changes in the ways in which we manage and govern our societies and economies. This report is a joint effort by the OECD, UN Environment and the World Bank Group, supported by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. It focuses on how governments can move beyond the current incremental approach to climate action and more effectively align financial flows with climate and development priorities. The report explores six key transformative areas that will be critical to align financial flows with low-emission and resilient societies (planning, innovation, public budgeting, financial systems, development finance, and cities) and looks at how rapid socio-economic and technological developments, such as digitalisation, can open new pathways to low-emission, resilient futures.

The 2009 Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress ('Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi' Commission) concluded that we should move away from over-reliance on GDP when assessing a country’s health, towards a broader dashboard of indicators that would reflect concerns such as the distribution of well-being and sustainability in all of its dimensions. This book includes contributions from members of the OECD-hosted High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (HLEG), the successor of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission, on the latest research in this field. These contributions look in some depth at some of the key issues raised by the 2009 Commission, such as how to include the environment and sustainability in our measurement system and how to improve the measurement of different types of inequalities, of economic insecurity, of subjective well-being and of trust. A companion volume Beyond GDP: Measuring What Counts for Economic and Social Performance, presents an overview by the HLEG co-chairs, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Martine Durand of the progress accomplished since the 2009 report, of the work conducted by the HLEG over the past five years, and on what still needs to be done.

This report presents global projections of materials use and their environmental consequences, providing a quantitative outlook to 2060 at the global, sectoral and regional levels for 61 different materials (biomass resources, fossil fuels, metals and non-metallic minerals). It explains the economic drivers determining the decoupling of economic growth and materials use, and assesses how the projected shifts in sectoral and regional economic activity influence the use of different materials. The projections include both primary and secondary materials, which provides a deeper understanding of what drives the synergies and trade-offs between extraction and recycling.The report projects a doubling of global primary materials use between today and 2060. Population and converging per capita income growth drive the growth in materials use. However, structural change, especially in non-OECD countries, and technology improvements partially dampen that growth. Metals and non-metallic minerals are projected to grow more rapidly than other types of materials.

Metrics matter for policy and policy matters for well-being. In this report, the co-chairs of the OECD-hosted High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Martine Durand, show how over-reliance on GDP as the yardstick of economic performance misled policy makers who did not see the 2008 crisis coming. When the crisis did hit, concentrating on the wrong indicators meant that governments made inadequate policy choices, with severe and long-lasting consequences for many people. While GDP is the most well-known, and most powerful economic indicator, it can’t tell us everything we need to know about the health of countries and societies. In fact, it can’t even tell us everything we need to know about economic performance. We need to develop dashboards of indicators that reveal who is benefitting from growth, whether that growth is environmentally sustainable, how people feel about their lives, what factors contribute to an individual’s or a country’s success. This book looks at progress made over the past 10 years in collecting well-being data, and in using them to inform policies. An accompanying volume, For Good Measure: Advancing Research on Well-being Metrics Beyond GDP, presents the latest findings from leading economists and statisticians on selected issues within the broader agenda on defining and measuring well-being.

This report assesses the key bottlenecks within the water-energy-land-food nexus in Korea, and proposes policy recommendations and governance arrangements to future-proof environmental integrity and enhance sustainable growth. The increasing pressure caused by urbanisation, industrialisation, population growth and climate change in Korea has led to more land consumption and augmented water supply, at the expense of the environment and at a high cost for public finance. Korea has engaged with the OECD via a national policy dialogue to explore best practices from the wider international community to better manage the nexus at the river basin scale. 

The financing for sustainable development agenda promises to bring together more actors than ever before – from businesses, governments, philanthropists, and remitting households – to address the world’s most pressing problems and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.Yet, in spite of this promise, the financing for sustainable development gap is growing. While needs continue to increase, resources available to developing countries have been constrained and in some cases even declining, as illustrated by the recent drop in foreign direct investments. New financial instruments and interactions have yet to mobilise much-needed new resources in sufficient volumes. And despite significant advances, we do not yet fully understand the opportunities and risks faced by the various actors in this complex new global financing system.This report sounds a wake-up call. To fulfil the commitments of the 2030 Agenda, and lift hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty, the international community needs to maximise the development footprint of existing and future resources, thereby 'shifting the trillions' towards the SDGs. The first in a series, this report charts a forward path for the changes required in measurement, policies, and operations to achieve these ambitious objectives.

This report aims to provide policy makers with a comprehensive examination of 'project pipelines', a common concept in infrastructure planning and investment discussions, and one which has become a focal point in countries’ efforts to implement their climate commitments. The analysis is structured around some basic but important guiding questions, including: What is meant by project pipelines? How can we characterise them? What concrete approaches and actions can governments and other public institutions take to develop project pipelines and mobilise private finance into these projects? This close look at pipelines suggests that they can only be as robust as the investment-ready and bankable projects that constitute them, as effective as institutions that deliver them, and as ambitious as the objectives to which they are linked. Through a series of case studies, the report highlights that while governments and public institutions are already taking actions to develop robust pipelines in a range of country settings, these pipelines nevertheless need to be strengthened significantly to meet long-term climate mitigation objectives. Good practices pioneered by the countries and actors in the case studies can provide models for governments to adapt and bolster their own efforts.