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This report presents the governance framework in Kazakhstan for managing disaster risks. A wide range of disaster risks are present throughout the national territory, primarily floods, landslides, avalanches, but also extreme cold and heatwaves. The report reviews how the central government sets up a national strategy to manage these disaster risks, and how a national risk governance framework is formulated and executed. It examines the role of the private sector and other non-governmental actors in contributing to resilience at a national and subnational level.

Agriculture, with its growing contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions and opportunities to mitigate emissions, can help close the gap between existing global mitigation efforts and those that are needed to keep global warming to between 1.5 °C and 2 °C by the end of the century. Global scale and farm scale analyses are used to evaluate both the effectiveness of different policy options to reduce agricultural emissions, and the impact on competitiveness, farm income, food security, and government finances. In order to contribute to global mitigation efforts, countries will need to design agricultural policy measures that can navigate these trade-offs within the context of their national policy priorities and objectives. As most countries have not yet implemented policies to reduce emissions from agriculture, the analyses provided here come at an opportune time to inform this policy development.

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s 15th Conference of the Parties (CBD COP15) in 2020 marks a critical juncture for one of the defining global challenges of our time: the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, which underpin nearly all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Transformative changes are needed to ensure biodiversity conservation and sustainable use and the delivery of the ecosystem services upon which all life depends. This report sets the economic and business case for urgent and ambitious action on biodiversity. It presents a preliminary assessment of current biodiversity-related finance flows, and discusses the key data and indicator gaps that need to be addressed to underpin effective monitoring of both the pressures on biodiversity and the actions (i.e. responses) being implemented. The report concludes with ten priority areas where G7 and other countries can prioritise their efforts.

Pharmaceuticals are essential for human and animal health but they are increasingly recognised as a contaminant to environmental and human health when their residues enter freshwater systems: psychiatric drugs alter fish behaviour; endocrine disrupting pharmaceuticals cause reproduction toxicity in fish and increased risk of breast or prostate cancer in humans; and the overuse of antibiotics is linked to antimicrobial resistance – a global health crisis. The situation is set to worsen with growing use of pharmaceuticals projected with economic growth, ageing populations, advances in healthcare, and increased livestock and fish production. This report helps to close the science-policy loop. It provides policy guidance to cost-effectively reduce human and veterinary pharmaceuticals in freshwater, and their associated risks to human and environmental health. Voluntary participation alone will not deliver; economic and regulatory drivers from central government are needed. Ultimately, a life-cycle approach combining a policy mix of source-directed, use-orientated and end-of-pipe measures, involving several policy sectors, is required to effectively deal with pharmaceuticals across their life cycle.

For most countries in the Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) region, mining is an important economic sector that contributes to employment and public revenue. Despite mining’s potential to cause long-term negative environmental impacts, governments in the region have a vital role to play in supporting better environmental performance in the sector and ensuring the industry can be a progressive part of a greener economy. This report examines the environmental impacts of mining in the EECCA and provides policy makers with guidance to reconcile environmental and competitiveness objectives in the mining sector.

This report discusses the main results of a project on how an influx of funds could spur development of cleaner public transport, and reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in large urban centres in Kyrgyzstan, by providing an analysis for designing a green public investment programme in this sector. This sector represents an opportunity for Kyrgyzstan to address key objectives in its environmental and climate-related policies as part of the country’s ambitions to transition to a green economic path of development. The investment programme is also designed to support the modernisation of the urban transport fleet in the country and stimulate the domestic market to shift to modern buses powered by cleaner fuels. The programme is foreseen to be implemented in two phases: the first covers the cities of Bishkek and Osh and the second extends to areas outside of the initial pilot city centres (pilot city suburbs as well as inter-city transport). These investments are expected to result in significant environmental, public service and socio-economic benefits.

Recent digital innovations provide opportunities to deliver better policies for the agriculture sector by helping to overcome information gaps and asymmetries, lower policy-related transaction costs, and enable people with different preferences and incentives to work better together. Drawing on ten illustrative case studies and unique new data gathered via an OECD questionnaire on agri-environmental policy organisations' experiences with digital tools, this report explores opportunities to improve current agricultural and agri-environmental policies, and to deliver new, digitally enabled and information-rich policy approaches. It also considers challenges that organisations may face to make greater use of digital tools for policy, as well as new risks which increased use of digital tools may bring. The report provides practical advice on how policy makers can address challenges and mitigate risks to ensure digital opportunities for policy are realised in practice. Finally, the report briefly considers the broader regulatory and policy environment underpinning digitalisation of the agriculture sector, with the view to ensuring that use of digital tools for agricultural and agri-environmental policy remains coherent with the digitalisation of agriculture more generally.

As the world's premier forum for international economic co-operation, the G20 plays a critical role in helping to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Based on robust evidence and available data, this report examines how the G20's contributions to the global goals across key sectors are already making a difference, while also suggesting where it could go further in leading by example to support the global goals.Collectively, G20 members account for around 85% of global gross domestic product, 75% of world trade and 80% of global carbon dioxide emissions – to name just a few areas of the G20's influence. This report, commissioned by the Government of Japan in support of its 2019 G20 Presidency, takes stock of the G20's progress to date against its Action Plan on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This report aims to support the development of a sound economic regulatory system for the water supply and sanitation (WSS) sector in the Republic of Moldova (hereafter 'Moldova'). The prevailing policy framework calls for drastic developments in WSS to modernise and optimise WSS systems and improve operational efficiency (non-revenue water, staff-output ratios etc.) – in line with domestic and international commitments (including the Association Agreement with the European Union, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the national WSS strategy). This report outlines ways and means for strengthening the capacity of the Moldovan government to provide sound regulation and that of WSS operators to deliver higher standards of service while ensuring the affordability of WSS services. Such a transition cannot happen overnight. It requires a sound economic regulatory system conducive to affordability, cost recovery and debt servicing, and a realistic performance improvement path for water utilities.