Today’s global pressures, rising geopolitical instability, accelerating environmental impacts and persistent inequalities are increasingly interconnected and cut across traditional policy boundaries, demanding strategic leadership and effective co‑ordination across the whole of government.
Against this backdrop, Austria has taken important steps to advance its sustainable development objectives. Strategic frameworks such as the Three-Year Programme on Austrian Development Policy help articulate long-term ambitions and promote an integrated, whole-of-government approach to sustainable development. Efforts to strengthen decision making processes and co‑ordination structures have also contributed to embedding sustainability considerations more firmly across government action.
This report provides an overview of how Austria’s strategic, institutional, policy and legal frameworks support policy coherence for sustainable development (PCSD). It highlights progress made and identifies areas where government arrangements and capacities could be further reinforced to enhance the impact of public action. This OECD Policy Coherence Scan of Austria provides targeted, practical recommendations to operationalise PCSD principles and advance cross-cutting policy priorities linked to development policy and development co-operation.
This report is part of the European Union-funded project Building Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD) in Austria, Italy and the Slovak Republic. The component for Austria was requested by the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs to the European Union’s Technical Support Instrument. Implemented as a multi-country initiative, the project enables peer learning and the exchange of good practices in applying PCSD principles in SDG implementation. It contributes to broader OECD efforts to help countries to integrate PCSD throughout their policymaking processes.