Germany

German federal states and municipalities have engaged in decentralised development co-operation (DDC) since the 1950s. Germany provides over half of total official development assistance (ODA) in the world that is channelled as DDC. However, most of this support remains within German borders. To incentivise further international partnerships, the federal government has established dedicated programmes and financial support schemes for states and municipalities. This report presents key data on the DDC landscape in Germany and offers guidance on how to strengthen its role in enabling peer-to-peer learning and improve collaboration between German states and municipalities. It also showcases how to further raise awareness about the mutual benefits of DDC partnerships, including through better ODA data reporting and a harmonised approach to monitoring and evaluating its results across levels of government.

To achieve its vision to become one of the most attractive and competitive regions in Europe by 2025, the Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region put in place eleven fields of action that promote sustainability across policy areas, such as sustainable and needs-based mobility, regional innovation promotion, regional energy transition and education of the future. This report offers guidance on how the metropolitan region could harness the SDGs as an integrated framework to address its main challenges, including climate change, the impacts of digitalisation on the labour market, territorial disparities among urban and rural areas as well as the co-ordination of actors and policies across three different federal states, notably on funding.

Combatting climate change is among the most critical issues on the global policy agenda. The transition towards a greener economy will require a pivot towards more sustainable production processes and consumption patterns. Entrepreneurs have the potential to be a major driving force behind this effort through their capacity to develop and propagate innovative green solutions. To unlock this potential, it is crucial for policy makers to implement appropriate policies and measures that enable green entrepreneurs to thrive. This report identifies lessons from international policy practices in stimulating and supporting green entrepreneurship from three case study countries – Canada, Germany and Israel – to inform Denmark about effective policy practices and pitfalls to avoid as it implements initiatives to strengthen its green transition. Recommendations are offered across a number of areas such as promoting greater co-ordination between relevant policy actors, strengthening specialised support for green entrepreneurs and building green markets.

After a long period of employment growth that led to the lowest unemployment rate since the German reunification, Berlin’s labour market is now tightening. Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, global labour market megatrends such as the automation of production processes and the increasingly advanced digital skills required to perform many jobs pose new challenges to Berlin’s policymakers. Preparing and improving its adult learning system to adapt to the rapidly changing demand for skills will be vital for the future competitiveness of Berlin’s economy and socio-economic mobility. The report Future-Proofing Adult Learning in Berlin, Germany analyses strengths and bottlenecks in Berlin’s adult learning programmes. It stresses the importance of developing a long-term vision for continuing education and training in Berlin that brings together different actors from an adult learning landscape that offers a wide range of diverse services. It further highlights the need to expand local adult learning programmes that account for the city’s highly dynamic population and labour market.

Comprehensive and coordinated action across levels of government responsible for different policy domains (labour, education, housing and welfare/health) as well as across local actors is crucial to migrant integration. To respond to this need for co-ordination, different policy instruments are mobilised by countries. This paper presents six of them, to illustrate three categories of practices supporting migrant integration through better multi-level co-ordination: Reinforcing co-ordination (financial, human, technical) between levels of governments and private actors such as businesses or non-governmental organisations to foster migrant integration and retention: The Canadian Atlantic Immigration Pilot (AIP) and the French Territorial Contracts for the Reception and Integration of Refugees (CTAIR); Resolving information and evaluation asymmetries: Vienna (Austria) Integration and Diversity Monitor and the German Network IQ; Illustrating the positive externalities of territorial development and investment programmes on migrant integration and social cohesion: The Italian Inner Areas Strategy and the French Urban Policy.

A first step to implement effective migrant integration policies is to know who does what in policy sectors key to integration. Responding to this need, this paper offers policy makers a tool to understand the organisation of public action in key sectors for integration - Employment, Education, Housing, and Health/Welfare – in a sample of 10 OECD countries: Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands. The complexity of the division of powers among levels of government calls for coordination mechanisms between actors, whatever the level of decentralisation. Besides, it throws lights on subnational governments’ role in integrating migrants and enabling them to participate to local development for the benefits of all. The geographic differences that exist in migrant presence and outcomes mean countries should build on local authorities' knowledge of local realities, aptitudes to coordinate different policy fields at the relevant scale and cooperate with non-governmental organisations.

STRING is a political cross-border organisation spanning five cities (the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Copenhagen, Malmö, Gothenburg and Oslo) and eight regions (Schleswig-Holstein, Region of Southern Denmark, Region Zealand, Capital Region of Denmark, Region Skåne, Region Halland, Västra Götalandsregionen and Viken County) across Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Home to around 14 million inhabitants, STRING has good potential to become a leading European megaregion and an internationally acknowledged Green Hub if governments 'think big' and work together beyond their own boundaries. Building on its green expertise and high levels of innovation and quality of life, STRING could take advantage of current opportunities such as the construction of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link to reap the benefits of agglomeration economies and establish itself as a sustainable megaregion. However, time is of the essence. Seizing the political momentum of the coming decade, including the momentum to support a green recovery from COVID-19, will be critical to advance STRING’s green vision and shape a future-proof economic model.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the policy ecosystem in place for social entrepreneurship and social enterprises in the state of Brandenburg, Germany. It identifies the state’s key strengths and challenges and provides policy recommendations to support the development of a stronger policy ecosystem. It includes a conceptual framework for social entrepreneurship and social innovation (Chapter 2); with recommendations and analyses to build institutional and legal frameworks for social enterprises (Chapter 3), improve access to finance for social entrepreneurship development (Chapter 4), promote access to private and public markets for social entrepreneurship development (Chapter 5), and strengthen social impact measurement and reporting for social enterprise development (Chapter 6).

Populations in OECD and emerging economies are ageing rapidly, which will have significant macroeconomic impacts, including on public expenditures and tax revenues. The rules and practices that govern fiscal relations among different levels of government, such as their responsibilities for taxation, spending and debt management, have a bearing on economic efficiency and ultimately growth. The consequences of population ageing at subnational government levels are especially intense. Many local governments are vulnerable to the ageing of their populations from a fiscal perspective. The economic and fiscal challenges of an ageing population go beyond intergovernmental boundaries, and they require complex intergovernmental policy responses. This volume brings together cross-country studies of fiscal policy, demographics and spatial productivity, as well as country studies of Brazil, Canada, China and Germany.