Publications

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) underpin the economies of the Western Balkans and Türkiye, accounting for the majority of employment and value added. Their competitiveness and resilience are therefore central to sustainable growth and economic convergence with the European Union.

Yet SMEs operate in an increasingly demanding environment shaped by global uncertainty, the digital and green transitions, and demographic change. While these shifts create opportunities, they also expose persistent weaknesses—including fragmented policy frameworks, limited greening, uneven digital adoption and skills gaps—that constrain firm-level resilience and adaptability. Addressing these challenges requires policies that not only support growth, but strengthen enterprises’ capacity to anticipate shocks, adapt to changing market conditions and sustain performance over time.

The seventh edition of the SME Policy Index for the Western Balkans and Türkiye provides a comprehensive assessment of SME policy progress since 2022, based on the OECD’s established methodology and aligned with OECD and EU good practices. It identifies achievements, remaining gaps and actionable recommendations to strengthen policy effectiveness.

The regional profile synthesises findings across four thematic policy clusters, complemented by seven economy-specific profiles covering policy development and performance in each participating economy.

The 2026 OECD Agri-Environmental Indicators (AEIs) present key trends in the environmental performance of agriculture across OECD Member countries over the period 1990–2023.

Overall, observed trends continue to be consistent with increasing efficiency of production, with decreasing input use and pollution per unit of agricultural output produced. However, progress continues to be uneven across indicators. Trends in input use show noticeable decreases in fertilizer consumption and an increase in on-farm energy consumption. The observed decreases in fertilizer consumption, in particular, contributed to the decreases observed in both the median and maximum nitrogen surplus per hectare since 2021.

Progress has also been uneven across countries. For instance, whilst agricultural ammonia emissions decreased in 24 OECD countries over the 2013-2023 period, it increased in 10 countries covered by the database.

Cette étude de marché analyse, du point de vue de la concurrence, les places de marché en ligne en Pologne, en Lettonie et en Lituanie. Elle vise à aider les responsables de l’action publique et les autorités de la concurrence de ces trois pays à améliorer le fonctionnement de la concurrence sur les places de marché en ligne et au sein de leurs écosystèmes. Les auteurs examinent la structure, la dynamique concurrentielle et le cadre réglementaire des places de marché en ligne. Ils accordent une attention particulière au pouvoir de marché des grandes plateformes numériques, aux barrières à l’entrée et à l’expansion, ainsi qu’aux écosystèmes plus larges dans lesquels ces plateformes s’inscrivent. Les recommandations formulées tracent une feuille de route visant à renforcer l’efficacité des politiques de la concurrence et à adapter les réponses réglementaires aux spécificités des marchés numériques. La mise en œuvre de ces recommandations contribuerait à renforcer la surveillance des marchés et l’application du droit de la concurrence, réduire les barrières à l’entrée et à l’expansion, promouvoir des pratiques proconcurrentielles en matière de données et corriger les déséquilibres structurels entre les places de marché en ligne et les vendeurs, entre autres, favorisant ainsi une plus grande contestabilité et des résultats de marché plus équilibrés.

How can employment services better connect people to jobs in a complex, decentralised system? Italy has made major investments to expand employment support, including through its Garanzia di Occupabilità dei Lavoratori programme, which is on track to provide employment services to 3 million jobseekers. The system combines personalised support through profiling tools and harmonised pathways with a diverse network of providers, strengthened digital platforms and strong regional engagement.

This report examines how stronger public-private partnerships can build on the current system, to drive up service quality, reduce regional variation and improve co-ordination and governance. Drawing on detailed analysis of national and regional programmes, extensive stakeholder consultations and OECD best practice, it presents a new model for contracted-out employment services in Italy.

The new model will improve provider market structure, strengthen incentives and accountability, and make better use of digital systems and data to support jobseekers and employers. It contains practical approaches to enhancing service quality, expanding capacity and ensuring more consistent delivery across regions, while respecting Italy’s decentralised governance.

The report offers actionable recommendations for policymakers to build a more effective, resilient and inclusive employment support system in Italy, with broader lessons for public-private employment service delivery across the OECD.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is entering the digital trade era with strong foundations, marked by high trade openness and rapid digital adoption. These advantages have fuelled fast rising digital trade exports, which reached USD 387 billion – nearly 20% of total ASEAN exports and 6% of global digital trade. Yet, despite this strong performance, domestic regulatory bottlenecks continue to constrain the region’s full digital trade potential.

This Digital Trade Review assesses how ASEAN Member States (AMS) engage in and benefit from digital trade. It examines the domestic regulatory frameworks shaping digital trade, with a particular focus on cross border data flow regimes. The Review also evaluates the economic implications of advancing regional digital integration through initiatives such as the Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), AMS’ participation in the WTO e-commerce agreement, and the continuation of the WTO e-commerce Moratorium. Finally, the Review explores how trade policy can help ASEAN harness emerging opportunities from artificial intelligence (AI), ensuring that the region strengthens its position in the global digital economy.

Markets and regulators increasingly require businesses to act more responsibly in their activities and along global value chains. Recently, the European Union (EU) introduced new legislation to promote climate neutrality, and more sustainable financial flows and business practices in supply chains. In this context, Ireland aims to develop a Responsible Business Compass to navigate relevant EU legislation and national support. The compass will help Irish policymakers foster coherence and support businesses, notably small and medium-sized enterprises, to understand their obligations and access support, thereby facilitating compliance and competitiveness.

This report presents OECD recommendations on Ireland’s future compass. It builds on a comparative analysis of EU legislation on due diligence, deforestation, forced labour, batteries, circular economy, eco-design, product repair and carbon emission pricing, also in light of OECD responsible business conduct standards. It provides a policy system mapping of how Irish policies can promote business compliance and uptake, where gaps exist and where to find synergies. OECD recommendations were informed by a cross-ministerial and multilevel policy dialogue, involving 13 Irish departments and agencies at national and subnational levels, and a broad stakeholder consultation. The report comes with a pilot visualisation tool developed by the OECD for user experience experimentation.

Private action is essential to halt and reverse biodiversity loss and promote the sustainable use of natural resources, which underpin livelihoods, economic growth and sustainable development. Yet, market failures, weak governance and high transaction costs – particularly in developing countries – mean biodiversity remains undervalued in economic decisions. This limits the ability and incentives of private actors – especially in nature-dependent sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries and mining – to shift business models, comply with rising sustainability requirements and manage nature-related risks. These barriers affect actors in both the real economy and the financial sector, underscoring the need to support the transition to biodiversity-positive pathways.

This report explores how development co-operation can scale up private action for biodiversity and natural capital in developing countries. It highlights three key entry points: strengthening enabling environments, promoting private sector engagement and mobilising private finance through development finance, blending and de-risking mechanisms. Together, these can help shift finance and investment away from activities that harm nature and towards more sustainable practices, including across global value chains and trade. Development co-operation can play a catalytic role by connecting stakeholders, unlocking investment, and mainstreaming biodiversity into policies, operations and supply chains.

This report examines how the Judicial Council of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires uses its e-procurement platform, Justicia Compra (JUC), to purchase goods and services. It looks at what is working well, where challenges remain, and how the system compares with practices in other countries.

Public procurement is a powerful tool for delivering better public services, ensuring transparency, and making efficient use of public funds. As a pioneer among local judiciaries in Argentina to adopt a digital procurement platform, the Judicial Council of Buenos Aires has taken important steps towards modernising its processes. However, there is still room to strengthen how procurement is managed across all stages of the procurement cycle, improve skills and capacity, and make better use of data.

The report highlights key opportunities to enhance JUC, including expanding its use beyond the tendering stage, improving co-ordination across stakeholders, and strengthening performance monitoring. It is intended for policymakers, public officials, and practitioners involved in procurement and digital transformation, as well as those interested in how governments can use technology to improve public sector performance.

Austria has made progress in reducing environmental pressures, including energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and air and water pollution. It generates most of its electricity from renewable sources, is a leader in organic farming and has extensive protected areas. Austria has advanced the circular economy, building on its efficient waste management system. However, challenges remain in improving resource circularity and curbing land take. Half of rivers and lakes are in poor ecological condition, and biodiversity pressures persist. Austria must accelerate greenhouse gas emission reductions to meet its targets, while strengthening resilience to climate impacts, notably floods. The country has implemented important reforms, including carbon pricing. Despite progress in greening the financial sector, financing flows remain misaligned with climate goals. Austria needs a more cost effective and balanced policy mix, along with stronger multi level governance, to sustain progress amid rising fiscal pressures.

The fourth OECD Environmental Performance Review of Austria assesses the country’s progress towards its environmental goals, with a special focus on the circular economy. It provides 40 recommendations to help Austria further strengthen its environmental policies and outcomes.

The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts peer reviews of individual members once every five to six years. Reviews seek to improve the quality and effectiveness of members’ development co-operation, highlighting good practices and recommending improvements.

The peer review of Italy, led by Germany and Iceland, examines how Italy is adapting its development co-operation to a context of heightened political attention. Since the launch of the Mattei Plan in 2024, development co-operation has been placed more firmly at the heart of foreign policy, with a growing engagement in Africa as the main geographic priority, and increased attention to migration and private sector engagement. Italy has maintained its official development assistance (ODA) levels and continues to play an active multilateral role, while expanding its financing toolkit. The report underlines the need for resources to keep pace with growing ambitions, while maintaining coherence and effectiveness across an increasingly complex system. Strengthening strategic focus, implementation capacity, and co-ordination will be essential to fully realise Italy’s development co-operation objectives.

A place’s economic future is shaped not only by its industries, infrastructure and institutions, but also by its identity: how people perceive it, talk about it and imagine what it can become. The stories attached to a place, rooted in its history, culture and industrial legacy, influence whether communities feel trapped in decline or confident to create and pursue opportunities. They impact whether people stay, move in or leave a place; whether firms see potential for investment; and whether visitors are drawn to it. While stories of loss and discontent can hinder transformation, local pride and strong attachments can be harnessed as resources for economic and social renewal. In an era of growing competition for talent, capital and visibility, place branding is increasingly being used by places to understand and communicate what they are and what they want to be.

This report examines why place identity matters for policymakers and how it can be used alongside traditional levers to support broadly shared local prosperity. Drawing on research and practical examples, it outlines how to map a place’s identity, unearth and use a place narrative, tap into pride in place and belonging, and embed this work into government institutions and policies.

Independent supreme audit institutions (SAIs) are a cornerstone of sound public governance. By auditing how public funds are managed and assessing public sector performance, they play a key role in holding governments to account and maintaining citizen trust. As countries face growing fiscal pressures, complex policy challenges and declining levels of trust, ensuring that SAIs operate independently and effectively is essential.

Drawing on insights from countries across the globe, this report highlights that SAIs’ independence is determined not only by laws, but also by informal factors such as public perceptions, professional norms and the quality of a SAIs’ relations with the broader accountability ecosystem (including the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, civil society and other actors). It finds that where SAIs’ institutional relations, reputation and credibility are strong, they are better able to fulfil their role, and their findings are more likely to be acted upon.

The report provides recommendations for SAIs, policymakers, legislators and other key accountability actors to strengthen SAI independence in practice, and, in turn, foster transparency, trust and the effective use of public resources.

Infrastructure built today will affect emissions, resilience and well-being for decades. This report examines how countries in Central and Southeast Asia plan and finance energy, transport and industry-related infrastructure that supports economic growth while responding to climate change and other environmental challenges. Covering Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand and Uzbekistan, it shows how governments can make better-informed choices by strengthening planning, improving how projects are assessed and attracting investment that delivers broader economic, social and environmental benefits.

Designed for policymakers, practitioners and development partners, the report offers insights grounded in country experience and regional collaboration. It illustrates current progress, common challenges and emerging opportunities to scale up sustainable infrastructure.

Locally led development (LLD) has gained prominence as an approach to re-imagining how development co-operation is conceived, delivered and assessed. Over time, ambitions by the members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) to facilitate more local ownership have increased, reflecting a series of policy commitments by the DAC across development, humanitarian and peacebuilding contexts.

Yet, for most DAC members, translating these commitments into consistent policies, programme design, funding practices and institutional behaviour remains a work in progress. Deep-rooted mindsets, operational, financial and institutional constraints continue to a varying degree to shape how development partners and their intermediaries allocate power, agency and resources to diverse local actors across the development system.

These practical guidelines offer a menu of options to inspire and support DAC members to advance LLD more deliberately and at a greater pace, by reflecting on how their existing systems can evolve, where new approaches may be tested, and how collective action can respond to local actors’ calls to strengthen local agency, rebalance power and build a renewed culture of global solidarity.

Infrastructure is essential for economic growth, the climate transition and resilience. Yet, in many countries, infrastructure projects take years to move from planning to construction, with permitting processes often contributing to delays, higher costs and uncertainty. These challenges are becoming more pressing as governments seek to rapidly expand energy, transport and other strategic infrastructure.

This report examines how permitting systems affect the delivery of infrastructure projects and explores how governments can accelerate decision making while maintaining environmental and social safeguards. It looks at how countries are attempting to streamline permitting procedures and identifies emerging approaches to better manage competing interests and trade-offs during the project development process.

The report aims to support policymakers and practitioners working to deliver infrastructure more efficiently and predictably while maintaining trust and accountability in public decision making.

This report presents the second OECD overview of countries’ progress in governing critical risks over the period 2017–2023, based on the 2014 OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Critical Risks. Drawing on a cross-country survey of 34 countries, it examines how governments have strengthened their capacity to anticipate, prepare for, respond to, and learn from major shocks with national consequences.

The report shows that most countries have continued to make progress in implementing the Recommendation and have used it to shape new policy initiatives, revise national strategies, and adapt institutional arrangements. However, progress remains uneven across countries and across different aspects of risk governance. The COVID-19 pandemic, alongside other large-scale crises, severely tested national systems and highlighted persistent gaps in managing complex, fast-moving, and cross-border risks. Leading practices are found in countries where the rapidly evolving security context is reflected in country risk profiles and a whole of society approach to risk management incorporates actions to preserve social cohesion.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) underpin the economies of the Western Balkans and Türkiye, accounting for the majority of employment and value added. Their competitiveness and resilience are therefore central to sustainable growth and economic convergence with the European Union.

Yet SMEs operate in an increasingly demanding environment shaped by global uncertainty, the digital and green transitions, and demographic change. While these shifts create opportunities, they also expose persistent weaknesses—including fragmented policy frameworks, limited greening, uneven digital adoption and skills gaps—that constrain firm-level resilience and adaptability. Addressing these challenges requires policies that not only support growth, but strengthen enterprises’ capacity to anticipate shocks, adapt to changing market conditions and sustain performance over time.

The seventh edition of the SME Policy Index for the Western Balkans and Türkiye provides a comprehensive assessment of SME policy progress since 2022, based on the OECD’s established methodology and aligned with OECD and EU good practices. It identifies achievements, remaining gaps and actionable recommendations to strengthen policy effectiveness.

This economy profile assesses performance across 13 policy dimensions and examine progress through four thematic policy clusters. A companion regional profile synthesises shared trends, common challenges and cross-cutting priorities across the seven participating economies.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) underpin the economies of the Western Balkans and Türkiye, accounting for the majority of employment and value added. Their competitiveness and resilience are therefore central to sustainable growth and economic convergence with the European Union.

Yet SMEs operate in an increasingly demanding environment shaped by global uncertainty, the digital and green transitions, and demographic change. While these shifts create opportunities, they also expose persistent weaknesses—including fragmented policy frameworks, limited greening, uneven digital adoption and skills gaps—that constrain firm-level resilience and adaptability. Addressing these challenges requires policies that not only support growth, but strengthen enterprises’ capacity to anticipate shocks, adapt to changing market conditions and sustain performance over time.

The seventh edition of the SME Policy Index for the Western Balkans and Türkiye provides a comprehensive assessment of SME policy progress since 2022, based on the OECD’s established methodology and aligned with OECD and EU good practices. It identifies achievements, remaining gaps and actionable recommendations to strengthen policy effectiveness.

This economy profile assesses performance across 13 policy dimensions and examine progress through four thematic policy clusters. A companion regional profile synthesises shared trends, common challenges and cross-cutting priorities across the seven participating economies.

The OECD Steel Outlook is an annual analysis of the world steel market. It provides the most up-to-date figures and the medium-term outlook showing developments in the world steel market by area, including apparent consumption, trade and production trends in the steel industry globally.

The global steel industry faces challenges that are likely to intensify through 2026. Excess capacity continues to increase, leading to oversupply on international markets. In some economies, capacity expansions exceed national demand by wide margins, leading to steel export surges and the displacement of production in market-oriented steel industries. China’s steel exports continued to surge to new record highs in 2025, adding pressure to already weak international market conditions. Global crude steel production and demand contracted in 2025 and conditions are expected to remain fragile and uneven across regions in 2026.

Competition continues to be distorted by subsidies, particularly in China and several other non-OECD economies. These trends have prompted a sharp rise in global trade actions on steel and have raised concerns about circumvention practices. The findings in this Outlook underscore the urgency of addressing non-market policies driving global imbalances in the steel market.

Access to climate and biodiversity finance is shaped by the wider development finance landscape, along with structural constraints and fragmentation. Although essential for developing countries, especially the most vulnerable, this finance remains embedded in broader development finance flows rather than operating as a distinct system. Funding has increased over the past decade, led mainly by bilateral donors and multilateral development banks. Vertical climate and environmental funds play an important catalytic role, but they still account for a small share of total flows and are often harder to access for countries with limited capacity. Fragmentation across funding sources further raises transaction costs and strains institutional capacity. Econometric evidence shows that allocation patterns continue to reflect traditional development finance drivers, with absorptive capacity often outweighing vulnerability. As a result, countries most in need may still face persistent barriers to access, underscoring the need for more coherent, co-ordinated and context-sensitive approaches.

The report combines descriptive statistics, econometric analysis and six country case studies (Armenia, Gabon, Madagascar, Senegal, Saint Lucia and Togo) to assess access to international environmental finance, identify current bottlenecks and highlight good practices that could be scaled up.

Inter-municipal co-operation is becoming essential for local governments of all sizes as they face demographic change, rising service demands, and growing pressure to do more and better with limited resources. This publication shows how working together enables municipalities to maintain quality public services and infrastructure and strengthen long-term territorial development, without giving up local identity or autonomy.

Drawing on international practices from OECD and accession countries, it explains what makes co-operation succeed: a legal framework that provides clarity, consistency and flexibility; an institutional framework that aligns functions, territorial scales and co-operation forms with the nature of services; a solid fiscal framework that enables co-operation to emerge, function effectively and endure over time. These three pillars should be supported by enabling conditions, such as trust, governance transparency, data and monitoring.

The report includes brief snapshots of inter-municipal co-operation frameworks across 44 OECD and accession countries that offer useful points of comparison and help readers understand the diversity of co-operation arrangements.

This report is designed for national and local policymakers and practitioners. It offers practical insights to collaborate more effectively, whether in rural areas seeking to maintain essential services or growing cities co-ordinating across functional areas.

Manufacturing is a cornerstone of global economic value creation, both through its direct contributions to output and employment and through its role in driving technological diffusion and productivity spillovers across sectors. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a key role in industrial ecosystems, generating a substantial share of manufacturing value added and employment across OECD economies. Yet the sector is undergoing rapid transformation. Digitalisation, rising sustainability requirements, and growing supply chain vulnerabilities are reshaping the competitive landscape at an unprecedented pace, presenting SMEs with both new opportunities and significant adjustment challenges.

This report examines these dynamics in three key manufacturing sectors: automotive, electronics (semiconductor) and machinery, where SMEs play an important role but face distinct transformation pathways. It highlights emerging policy approaches to better integrate SMEs into new industrial strategies, including ecosystem-based policy approaches that strengthen collaboration across local and global supply chains, place-based initiatives that support skills development and technology diffusion, and simplified access to industrial programmes to ensure SMEs can participate fully in innovation and transition efforts.

Shortages of medical products have become more frequent and more protracted over the past decade, driven by structural supply chain vulnerabilities, increasing global interdependencies and the concentration of manufacturing of key inputs. At the same time, governments need to prepare for potential future emergencies. Yet policymakers lack timely and comprehensive information on where critical medical inputs are produced, how supply networks are organised across borders, or where bottlenecks may emerge.

This report strengthens the evidence base on supply chain vulnerabilities for selected medical products relevant to public health emergencies. It maps the supply chains of three critical products (injectable systemic corticosteroids, seasonal influenza vaccines and influenza RT-PCR diagnostic tests), examining market structures, demand patterns, and upstream and downstream production. The analysis highlights data limitations, market structure, and dependency issues that affect the resilience of medical supply chains for critical medical products.

The report also explores how international co-operation initiatives and improved supply chain monitoring could support more secure supply of medical products, with a particular focus on the European Union.

The Lobito Corridor links Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia to global markets through the Atlantic port of Lobito. Built on modernised rail infrastructure, it aims to improve trade efficiency, diversify export routes and strengthen regional integration. Taking advantage of the increasing demand for critical minerals, the corridor could reinforce the region’s role in global supply chains while supporting broader trade, investment and economic diversification.

This report assesses how increased mining and transport activity along the corridor can translate into durable economic growth. It analyses how rail and logistics integration may shape freight demand and corridor performance to 2050, and identifies risks which may alter the overall contribution of the corridor to local economies (spanning base erosion and profit shifting in mineral supply chains, adverse impacts derived from the construction and operation of the corridor, and risks in the mineral supply chains).

Bringing together tax, transport and responsible business conduct perspectives, the report identifies the conditions needed to secure fair revenues, strengthen supply chain resilience and convert infrastructure investment into long term, inclusive growth"