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COVID-19 and Well-being: Life in the Pandemic explores the immediate implications of the pandemic for people’s lives and livelihoods in OECD countries. The report charts the course of well-being – from jobs and incomes through to social connections, health, work-life balance, safety and more – using data collected during the first 12-15 months of the pandemic. It also takes stock of what has happened to human, economic, social and natural capital that, beyond their effects on people’s lives today, shape living conditions for years to come. It shows how COVID-19 has had far-reaching consequences for how we live, work and connect with one another, and how experiences of the pandemic varied widely, depending on whether and where people work, their gender, age, race and ethnicity, education and income levels. The report also examines the role that well-being evidence can play in supporting governments’ pandemic recovery efforts. It argues that a well-being lens can prompt policy-makers to refocus on the outcomes that matter the most to people, to redesign policy content from a more multidimensional perspective, to realign policy practice across government silos, and to reconnect people with the public institutions that serve them.

This paper explores the conceptual framing and measurement of transboundary impacts in the context of the 2030 Agenda. It starts by defining transboundary impacts and reviewing different measurement approaches used so far. It then proposes a typology of transboundary impacts, classified depending on the type of international flows involved: financial flows, trade flows, movements of people, environmental flows and knowledge transfers. For each of these flows, transboundary impacts can be either positive or negative, depending on the aspect considered and on the conditions in origin and destination countries. Based on this framework, the paper presents evidence from a qualitative survey of experts about the potential impact of these five flows on each of the 17 Goals and 169 targets of the 2030 Agenda. Transboundary impacts are deemed by experts to be quite pervasive across SDGs, but also limited in scope to a small number of well-identified targets. Finally, the framework is operationalised for some specific areas within each of the five types of flows mentioned above, with the help of some proxy indicators. At the global level, the five types of transboundary relationships are dominated by three macro-regions, namely China, the United States-Canada and Europe, mainly reflecting the large size of these regions in most cases. When the assessment is conducted in relative terms (i.e. when impacts are normalised by population size or GDP), the picture becomes more nuanced, as 7 out of the 11 world regions considered record at least two large transboundary impacts. While this operationalisation is only meant to show how the proposed framework could be applied to concrete cases, the paper recommends its applications to other areas within each of the five flows, based on a richer set of indicators.

At their High-Level Meeting (HLM) in 2020, members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) set out a number of commitments and aspirations to align development co-operation with the objectives of international agreements to fight climate change and protect the environment. One year later, this report documents the individual and collective steps taken to give effect to the four voluntary commitments set out in the HLM Communiqué. It provides information on provisions and actions taken by DAC members to systematically integrate international environment and climate goals into development co-operation, to pursue more coordinated approaches, to support the transition of developing countries towards sustainable development pathways, and to better address the particular needs of Small Island Developing States.

Viet Nam has become a leading regional market for renewable energy in a short space of time led by private sector investment facilitated by favourable support mechanisms. Maintaining market growth sustainably while integrating higher shares of variable generation will be a key challenge for Viet Nam’s policy makers over the next decade as the post-pandemic economic recovery builds momentum. Viet Nam's economy also remains highly energy intensive and energy efficiency improvement has the potential to unlock multiple economic benefits with further market interventions. The Clean Energy Finance and Investment Policy Review of Viet Nam provides a comprehensive overview of the current policy framework, highlighting progress and identifying untapped opportunities for strengthening policy interventions that can help scale up clean energy finance and investment. It also provides a number of tailored recommendations for the Government of Viet Nam and development partners. The Review was undertaken within the OECD Clean Energy Finance and Investment Mobilisation (CEFIM) Programme, which supports governments in emerging economies to unlock finance and investment in clean energy.

Many Latin American countries have experienced improvements in income over recent decades, with several of them now classified as high-income or upper middle-income in terms of conventional metrics. But has this change been mirrored in improvements across the different areas of people’s lives? How’s Life in Latin America? Measuring Well-being for Policy Making addresses this question by presenting comparative evidence for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) with a focus on 11 LAC countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay). Spanning material conditions, quality of life, resources for future well-being, and inequalities, the report presents available evidence on well-being both before and since the onset of the pandemic, based on the OECD Well-being Framework. It also identifies priorities for addressing well-being gaps and describes how well-being frameworks are used in policy within Latin America and elsewhere around the world, providing lessons for governments on what is needed to put people’s well-being at the centre of their action. The report is part of the EU Regional Facility for Development in Transition for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Lithuania’s rapid economic growth has increased many environmental pressures. The country has declared ambitious medium- and long-term climate change mitigation goals. However, existing policies will not be enough to meet them. Total greenhouse gas emissions have not declined over the last decade, while those from transport have been rising rapidly. Lithuania needs to build on its impressive progress in moving away from landfilling to reduce waste generation and steer towards a circular economy. Water pollution with nutrients from the increased use of fertilisers and insufficiently treated wastewater must also be addressed. These efforts require improved integration of environmental considerations into sectoral policies and a whole-of-government approach to environmental management. Lithuania is implementing a series of positive changes in environment-related taxation. However, the trend of declining public environmental expenditure should be reversed. One priority area is additional investment in public transport and improvements in cycling and walking conditions that would help steer user behaviour towards sustainable transport modes. This is the first OECD Environmental Performance Review of Lithuania. It evaluates progress towards green growth and sustainable development, with a special chapter focusing on sustainable mobility.

How can governments support the private sector’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This book investigates the contribution of firms to the SDGs, particularly through their core business, taking into account inter-sectoral linkages and global value chains, using novel techniques and data sources. Despite the fact that the private sector has the potential to contribute to a wide range of SDGs, and that many firms find it economically viable to develop sustainable products and services, firms still face significant hurdles in their sustainability transition. Based on this new evidence, this book provides some recommendations on the design of industrial policies to enhance the contribution of businesses to the SDGs.

Based on the OECD standard methodology, the study presents quantitative estimates of government support to consumers and producers of coal, oil and related petroleum products and natural gas, and electricity and heat generated from these fossil fuels. This report summarises the main findings of the analysis of fossil-fuel subsidy schemes in the six European Union's Eastern Partner (EaP) countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. The study updates the 2018 Inventory of Energy Subsidies in the EU’s Eastern Partnership Countries by providing data and estimates for 2016‑19. The analysis focuses on measuring two major types of fossil-fuel subsidies: direct transfers of funds to producers and consumers; and tax expenditure. This report also briefly discusses the taxation and energy pricing policies that have had direct or indirect impact on the evolution of fossil-fuel subsidies in the region. Detailed estimates of all individual support measures for each of the six countries are provided in Annexes to the report.