22 June 2020
13h30-15h30 CEST

Public trust plummeted after the recession of 2009, giving rise to efforts to map, analyse and understand the main factors driving trust in government and devise appropriate measures to improve it. OECD work shows that high levels of integrity, fairness and openness in institutions are strong predictors of people’s trust in government. Similarly, government’s competence, i.e. its responsiveness and reliability in delivering public services and anticipating new needs as they arise, is crucial for boosting trust in institutions (OECD, 2017). At the individual level, economic and social insecurity are strong predictors of low trust.

Are these factors still the most relevant for explaining public trust, given the breadth and depth of the current Covid-19 crisis? Recent data, such as the Edelman Spring updates, indicate that trust in government may have surged amid the Covid-19 pandemic in 11 surveyed countries. Governments can win trust in a time of crisis - but evidence suggests that maintaining it over the economic and social recovery will be a far greater challenge.

Building a new paradigm for public trust

The OECD is committed to advancing the establishment of relevant and accurate measurement of public trust. To this end, we are launching a series of webinars Building A New Paradigm For Public Trust to revisit our analytical framework to verify relevance and lessons learned in terms of measurement and explore the links between public trust and its policy drivers.

Webinar highlights

• Read the highlights

Agenda

Opening Remarks
Opening remarks by Jeffrey Schlagenhauf, OECD Deputy Secretary General

Panellists:
Katju Holkeri, Head of Governance Policy Unit, Ministry of Finance, Finland
Marco Mira D’Ercole, Head of the Household Statistics and Progress Measurement Division, OECD
Tadas Leoncikas, Senior Research Manager, Eurofound
Steven Van de Walle Professor of public management, KU Leuven Public Governance Institute 

Moderator:
Monica Brezzi, Head of Governance Indicators and Performance Evaluation, OECD

The panel discussion will be followed by a Q&A session. 

Stay tuned for our next live webinars:

• Webinar 2: The Ties That Bind: Government Openness As Key Driver Of Trust
• Webinar 3: The Trust Divide: How COVID-19 Exposes Trust Deficits Among Population Groups