The hosting of global events such as the Olympics, Expos, World Cups and Cultural Festivals have long been seen as opportunities to stimulate growth and development. Hosts increasingly seek to ensure that such events act as catalysts for local development, are used to leverage long-term infrastructure investments, boost tourism and trade, create jobs and promote community development.

To deliver on these promises, events must be deliberately designed and executed to generate long-term benefits. They need to clearly demonstrate how they impact upon communities to contribute to economic growth and development. Tax incentives, investment and sponsorship deals must be well thought out and managed to ensure that each event benefits host cities and the awarding body. 

The Recommendation on Global Events and Local Development (italian version) was adopted by the Council meeting at Ministerial level on 30 May 2018. It offers a comprehensive overview of the conditions required to realise more sustainable global events and to build stronger capacities to leverage local benefits.

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Global sporting events and local development: boosting social impact in Sport et Citoyenneté n°50 

OECD project on global events impact measurement

To further promote implementation of the OECD Recommendation on Global Events and Local Development and its associated Toolkit, the OECD (with support from the International Olympics Committee) is undertaking a new project to provide guidance on impact measurement for global events and identify common impact indicators.

The OECD has been engaged in an extensive consultation process around this project, including expert and stakeholder workshops, webinars and knowledge exchange. As part of this consultation process, a new survey has been launched to gather evidence and identify common indicators on impact measurement of global events.

If you would like to be part of this consultation process, get in touch at GlobalEventsandLocalDevelopment@oecd.org.

The Global Events Toolkit

The Global Events Toolkit turns the OECD Recommendation into practice. It provides concrete guidance to local and national governments, event organisers and hosts. It proposes concrete actions to take into account throughout the life-cycle of global events, including the pre-bidding, bidding, operational and delivery, and evaluation phases. It comes at a time when policy makers around the world are managing the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis. This toolkit is meant as a living document and will continue to evolve in order to keep abreast with relevant policy developments.

Download the toolkit and apply it in your work!

 (French Version & Italian Version)

The OECD defines global events as events of a limited duration that have a global reach, require significant public investment and have an impact on the population and built environment. 

The definition covers as many global events as possible, noting that Adherents will determine the applicability of the Recommendation, in whole or in part, to a specific event.

While natural candidates are Olympic Games, World Expos etc., the Recommendation may be applied to a broader range of events such as summits, recurrent events (as appropriate) or those that do not require bidding.

More Information

• For more on the OECD LEED Committee please click here

• For more information and queries, please contact GlobalEventsandLocalDevelopment@oecd.org.