Reports

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.

Digital government has become a priority for Luxembourg as a means to enable its public sector to deliver more responsive and trusted services. The Digital Government Review of Luxembourg evaluates the efforts made by the government to transition towards a digital government approach. It provides in-depth analysis and policy recommendations to improve institutional governance, digital investments, digital talent and skills, government service delivery and the strategic use of data. Its findings can help Luxembourg achieve a more digitally mature and data-driven administration to better serve citizens and businesses.

The paper is the first in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The second paper is titled: ‘The environmental sustainability competence toolbox: From leaving a better planet to our children to leaving better children for our planet’.

The paper is the second in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The first paper is titled ‘Young people’s environmental sustainability competence: Emotional, cognitive, behavioural and attitudinal dimensions in EU and OECD countries.

In supporting children’s development, countries invest in the future successes of economies and societies. Awareness of the critical role early childhood education and care (ECEC) plays in setting a strong foundation for children’s learning, development and well-being has grown among policy makers worldwide. The OECD Quality beyond Regulations policy review provides countries with an overview of the different dimensions of quality in ECEC. It also highlights policies that can enhance process quality in particular. From this review, emerged the present report, taking an in-depth look at Luxembourg’s ECEC system. It outlines the system’s main strengths and challenges, focusing on workforce development and quality assurance through the monitoring system. The report provides tailored policy recommendations to improve provision in line with national goals.

This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in Luxembourg as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system. This edition has a special focus on the impact of COVID‑19. This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.

Children’s learning, development and well-being are directly influenced by their daily interactions with other children, adults, their families and the environment. This interactive process is known as 'process quality', and leads to a key question – which policies set the best conditions for children to experience high-quality interactions in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings? This report discusses five main policy levers and their effect on process quality, focusing particularly on curriculum and pedagogy, and workforce development. It presents indicators covering 26 countries and jurisdictions, 56 different curriculum frameworks, and more than 120 different types of ECEC settings.

The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity. This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments. It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.

Luxembourg has made progress in decoupling environmental pressures from economic growth, treating wastewater and managing waste and materials. It has also positioned itself as an international centre for green finance. Yet, it remains one of the most carbon- and material-intensive economies in the OECD. The country is a crossroads for freight traffic and attracts thousands of daily cross-border commuters. This exacerbates greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution and road congestion. Urban sprawl, landscape fragmentation and agriculture exert strong pressures on biodiversity. To steer its economy towards a greener model, Luxembourg has set ambitious environmental objectives. Greening taxation, providing stronger price signals, promoting eco-innovation and the circular economy, mainstreaming biodiversity into all policies, and investing in low-carbon infrastructure and sustainable mobility, should be priorities. This is the third Environmental Performance Review of Luxembourg. It evaluates progress towards green growth and sustainable development, with special chapters focusing on two major issues: air quality and mobility, and biodiversity.