Government at a Glance 2025

Executive summary

Governments today operate in a high-stakes environment marked by profound demographic, environmental and digital shifts compounded by relatively low levels of trust. Economic issues are at the forefront of citizens’ minds, yet governments must respond in the face of a challenging fiscal landscape: in 2023, average fiscal deficits in OECD countries reached 4.6% of GDP, a sharp rise from 2.9% in the years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Navigating these issues will require governments to focus on three fronts: enhancing individuals’ sense of dignity in their interaction with governments, restoring individual and collective sense of security in the face of rapid societal and economic changes, and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of government to boost productivity, while restoring public finances. At the intersection of these three fronts lies the long-term governance of the green transition.

Enhancing individuals’ sense of dignity through meaningful citizen engagement, strengthened accountability and more human-centred public services

• Governments need to focus on enhancing citizens’ trust that institutions and officials act in the public's interest, are accountable, and give people a voice in decision-making. Only about 30% of OECD populations in 2023 believed their governments would resist corporate influence, and 38% were confident their parliament could hold the government to account or that public services would respond to user needs. Only 30% feel that their political system lets them have a say.

• OECD countries are increasingly redesigning their delivery of public services to put users at the centre, with 20 out of 28 surveyed countries taking a life-event approach to service design, although only 13 have fully integrated them for at least one life event. These approaches mean people can find all the administrative services they need for a specific event, such as having a baby, in one place.

• Rules can be more effective when those affected are involved in their development. Among OECD countries, the average quality of stakeholder engagement in primary lawmaking improved slightly, rising from 2.0 in 2014 to 2.3 in 2024 on a scale of 0 to 4. In addition to traditional mechanisms, governments can also employ deliberative democratic practices—such as citizens' assemblies, juries, and public dialogues—to address complex or long-term policy challenges. Between 1979 and 2023, the OECD recorded 716 such processes, with 20% (148) occurring between 2021 and 2023.

• Standards on public transparency and conflicts of interest strengthen accountability, but only if put into practice. OECD countries’ regulatory frameworks on transparency of public information meet 66% of the recommended criteria, while their implementation meets 64%. The implementation gap is wider for conflicts of interest: OECD countries have 77% of the regulatory safeguards in place on average but only 42% are implemented in practice.

Restoring individual and collective sense of security in the face of rapid societal and economic changes

• Economic issues dominate most people’s concerns in OECD countries: 59% identified inflation as one of the three most important concerns, 33% poverty and social inequality, and 22% unemployment and jobs.

• Slightly more than one-third of people (37%) believe that the government can adequately balance the needs of different generations, while 41% disagree. Education and training opportunities help younger people benefit from economic growth; however, in 2023, 12.6% of youth were not in employment, education, or training (NEET)—a decrease from 2012, when the rate stood at 16%.

• Improving the effectiveness and accessibility of the justice system is key to preventing fraud and ensuring contracts will be enforceable. On average, the quality of civil justice across OECD countries scores 0.68 on a 0-1 scale, barely unchanged since 2014, when it was 0.67.

Optimising all available tools to boost government efficiency and productivity in the economy

• In 2023, almost all OECD countries (34 out of 35 surveyed) had conducted or were conducting spending reviews, aiming to restore their public finances. Political leadership is crucial to such reviews; in 15 of these countries, the cabinet was involved in setting their objectives and scope, while in 17 the cabinet had the final say on adopting their recommendations.

• Data, digital tools and AI all offer the prospect of efficiency gains. On average, OECD countries score 0.61 on the Digital Government Index (on a 0-1 scale) but could improve their digital policy frameworks, whole-of-government approaches and use of data as a strategic asset. On average, only 47% of OECD governments’ high-value datasets are available as open data, falling to just 37% of education datasets and 42% of health and social welfare ones.

• With public procurement amounting to 12.7% of GDP, optimising procurement systems could significantly boost efficiency. Already, 21 out of 35OECD surveyed countries use innovative technologies to streamline procurement workflows, automate repetitive tasks and reduce costs. Active monitoring is also crucial to efficiency gains; over two-thirds of OECD countries use efficiency indicators in their procurement systems to track and improve effectiveness.

Managing the green transition lies at the intersection of all of these

• The green transition requires long-term commitment. This is reflected in 23 out of 37 OECD countries enshrining emissions targets into law and 5 more proposing to do so. As of 2023, nearly half of countries (18 of 37) have also established dedicated independent advisory bodies to guide and monitor progress. However, detailed data on their roles and powers remain scarce, indicating the need for clearer frameworks.

• Green public procurement (GPP) frameworks have been adopted by 35 out of 38 OECD countries, but only 11 countries are developing methodologies to measure their environmental impact, such as CO₂ emissions saved.

• A large majority of OECD countries with available data (27 out of 36) assess the environmental impact of major primary laws but just 7 conduct ex post reviews of alignment with national or international sustainability goals.

• There is also an implementation gap in green infrastructure: 21 out of 32 surveyed countries have set climate resilience outcomes for infrastructure, but only 9 evaluate alternative solutions based on these outcomes during the appraisal process.