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Governments are facing significant climate-related risks from the expected increase in frequency and intensity of cyclones, floods, fires, and other climate-related extreme events. The report Building Financial Resilience to Climate Impacts: A Framework for Governments to Manage the Risks of Losses and Damages provides a strategic framework to help governments, particularly those in emerging market and developing economies, strengthen their capacity to manage the financial implications of climate-related risks. The goal of the framework is to support sound public financial management strategies that take into account budgetary and financing constraints, and to foster broader actions at the national and international levels. The report examines the role of governments in identifying and assessing climate-related physical risks and their impacts on public finances, and reporting climate-related fiscal risks to promote transparency in public financial management. It discusses how to mitigate those risks through protecting households and businesses, and developing integrated multipronged financial strategies to fund government expenditure needs. Finally, it calls for promoting integrated strategies to strengthen financial resilience at the country and regional levels, and for mobilising development co-operation to strengthen global climate financial resilience.

European Neighbourhood East countries have been actively engaged in improving service delivery for citizens and businesses for some time. Some have opted for flagship initiatives (often with large-scale, one-stop shop solutions), some for digitalisation of services, while some have taken an incremental approach towards the service delivery modernisation process. This comparative paper outlines the state of play in the design and delivery of public administrative services in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Public administrative services cover the vast array of interactions with (and within) government: making enquiries, applications, registrations and payments, and receiving information, documentation, decisions and funds. These contacts allow service users (citizens, businesses and non-governmental organisations) to exercise rights, access entitlements, execute obligations and achieve ambitions. As well as the description and analysis of the general service delivery framework(s), institutional set-up and practical implementation, this paper presents a comparative analysis of a set of life events and highlights inspiring practices from the different countries.

Tourism has been hit hard by the depth and duration of the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just as the sector was starting to rebound, the economic fallout from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has dealt a fresh blow to recovery prospects. The 2022 edition of OECD Tourism Trends and Policies analyses tourism performance and policy trends to support recovery across 50 OECD countries and partner economies. It examines the key tourism recovery challenges and outlook ahead, and highlights the need for co-ordinated, forward-looking policy approaches to set tourism on a path to a more resilient, sustainable and inclusive future. Evidence on the significance of the tourism economy is presented, with data covering domestic, inbound and outbound tourism, enterprises and employment, and internal tourism consumption. Tourism policy priorities, reforms and developments are analysed and examples of country practices highlighted. Thematic chapters provide insights on building resilience in the tourism ecosystem and promoting a green tourism recovery.

Rural regions in Colombia have untapped potential to boost wealth and well-being in the country. Despite remarkable economic growth over the last two decades, Colombia’s development policy needs to increase its focus on rurality, as regional inequalities remain high by OECD standards and structural challenges still prevent greater development in rural places. This report assesses trends, challenges and opportunities of rural Colombia and examines the country’s rural development policy. It offers recommendations to mobilise rural assets and improve rural well-being with a focus on: strengthening multi-government coordination and policy implementation; enhancing transport and broadband connectivity as well as accessibility to quality education and health and; improving land use management in rural Colombia.

This report discusses how steering innovation investment in public sector organisations through a portfolio approach can help governments respond to the multi-faceted challenges they face. Portfolio management is a well-known device in the financial sector, allowing for dynamic decision-making processes involving regular reviews of activity and ensuring a coherent distribution of resources among strategic options. The report illustrates how this approach can be applied by public sector organisations to reap a variety of benefits, including avoiding innovation fragmentation and single-point solutionism; tackling risk aversion and learning at the portfolio level; identifying synergies among projects and activities; building value chains among projects and programmes; and layering activities connected to complex reforms. The report also discusses the type of innovation investments or facets a portfolio can help to steer and what these look like in practice.

As countries seek to learn from the COVID-19 crisis and increase their resilience for the future, evaluations are important tools to understand what worked or not, why and for whom. This report is the first of its kind. It evaluates Luxembourg’s responses to the COVID-19 crisis in terms of risk preparedness, crisis management, as well as public health, education, economic and fiscal, and social and labour market policies. While Luxembourg’s response to the pandemic has been particularly agile, preserving the country’s resilience will require maintaining high levels of trust in government, reducing inequalities, and laying the foundations for inclusive growth. The findings and recommendations of this report will provide guidance to public authorities in these efforts.

In 2017, Italy became the first country in the OECD to link well-being indicators to economic and budget programming in government. The achievement was but one milestone in the country’s development of its Equitable and Sustainable Well-being framework. The Treasury Department of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, in conjunction with the National Institute of Statistics, has continued to develop the framework since then. This Action Plan contributes to that development by proposing ways to progress the integration of equitable and sustainable well-being indicators into policy development and budgeting. The Action Plan contributed to a consultation process with government ministries and stakeholders in 2022 by identifying a range of actions the government could consider in the near and medium term to achieve that integration outcome.

Democracies are at a critical juncture, under growing internal and external pressures. This publication sheds light on the important public governance challenges countries face today in preserving and strengthening their democracies, including fighting mis- and disinformation; improving government openness, citizen participation and inclusiveness; and embracing global responsibilities and building resilience to foreign influence. It also looks at two cross-cutting themes that will be crucial for robust, effective democracies: transforming public governance for digital democracy and gearing up government to deliver on climate and other environmental challenges. These areas lay out the foundations of the new OECD Reinforcing Democracy Initiative, which has also involved the development of action plans to support governments in responding to these challenges.

This policy paper, developed in collaboration with the European Ombudsman, provides guidance to governments on ensuring transparency and accountability in the use of COVID-19 recovery funds. With a specific focus on the funding provided through the European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the paper identifies ways for local, national and EU administrations to promote access to information, enhance public communication, and strengthen citizen and stakeholder participation and oversight in the implementation phases of recovery funding. Finally, it highlights the role of regional, national and supranational organisations (such as the aforementioned European Ombudsman) in fostering the open government principles of transparency, accountability, and stakeholder participation throughout the public decision-making and spending cycle, within the remits of their respective mandates.