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Improving water quality is consistently ranked as a top environmental concern in OECD public opinion surveys. The key challenges for policy makers in addressing water quality issues in agriculture are to reduce water pollution while encourage benefits, such as maintaining aquatic life. This book examines linking policies, farm management and water quality. It looks at recent trends and prospects for water pollution from agriculture and the implications of climate change. It assesses the costs and benefits of agriculture's impact on water systems, and presents a series of case studies. Finally the report provides a set of recommendations for countries for meeting the challenge of improving agricultural water quality.
In the former Soviet Union, extensive networks were constructed to supply urban populations with clean, safe water. However, the networks were not well designed and this resulted in low quality water services and high operation and maintenance costs. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the condition of water infrastructure deteriorated more dramatically following sharp decreases in public budgets and the continued tradition of providing water services virtually free of charge. Without urgent action, the quality of services will continue to worsen and, in some of the New Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union, may even collapse, with serious consequences for human health and economic activity.
This volume analyses the causes underlying this dire situation and presents recommendations for addressing it which were adopted at a meeting of Economic/Finance and Environment Ministers held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in October 2000. The meeting was organized within the framework of the EAP Task Force, with its Secretariat at OECD, and involved key stakeholders from the governmental and non-governmental sectors. The EAP Task Force will implement a focused programme of work guided by the main recommendations agreed by participants.
This report examines the progress made in water management in OECD countries in the light of the objectives of Agenda 21. It presents the experience of the OECD programme of environmental performance reviews and focuses on issues of sustainable use of water resources, pollution control and water economics.
Environmental performance reviews of Australia, Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States have already been published.
This report assesses the extent to which Dutch water governance is fit for future challenges and sketches an agenda for the reform of water policies in the Netherlands. It builds on a one-year policy dialogue with over 100 Dutch stakeholders, supported by robust analytical work and drawing on international best practice.
This report diagnoses the main governance and financing challenges to private sector participation in the water supply and wastewater sector of Tunisia, and provides ways forward to address these challenges. It been developed as part of a water policy dialogue conducted by the OECD jointly with the Global Water Partnership-Mediterranean (GWP-Med) in the context of the project labelled by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) "Governance and Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector", with the support of the FEMIP Trust Fund of the European Investment Bank.
This report addresses multilevel governance challenges in water policy implementation and identifies good practices for coordinating water policy across ministries, between levels of government, and across local actors at subnational level. Based on a methodological framework, it assesses the main “coordination gaps” in terms of policymaking, financing, information, accountability, objectives and capacity building, and provides a platform of existing governance mechanisms to bridge them. Based on an extensive survey on water governance the report provides a comprehensive institutional mapping of roles and responsibilities in water policy-making at national/subnational level in 17 OECD countries. It concludes on preliminary multilevel governance guidelines for integrated water policy.
This report addresses multilevel governance challenges in water policy in the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) and identifies good practices for co-ordinating water across ministries, between levels of government, and across local and regional actors. Based on the OECD Multilevel Governance Framework and a survey on water governance, the report i) maps the allocation of roles and responsibilities in 13 LAC countries’ water policy at central government and sub-national level; ii) identifies the main coordination “gaps” in terms of territorial and institutional fragmentation, funding mismatch, information asymmetry, accountability, objectives and capacity, and iii) provides a range of mechanisms to improve water governance at all levels and foster capacity-building.
This report assesses the main governance and financing challenges to private sector participation (PSP) in the water supply and sanitation sector of Jordan, and provides ways forward to address them, based on international experience and OECD compendium of principles and good practices. Using the diagnostic analysis of the governance challenges to PSP in the Jordan water sector (Chapter 1), the report identifies ways forward to overcome bottlenecks focusing on three key pillars (Chapter 2): i) managing public-private partnership in a fiscally constrained environment through appropriate budget processes; ii) reducing the regulatory risks through supporting the development of a high-quality framework; and iii)managing and enhancing stakeholder engagement to improve accountability and buy-in. The report also includes an action plan with concrete measures to implement the recommendations proposed in the report.
The report has been developed as part of a water policy dialogue conducted by the OECD jointly with the Global Water Partnership-Mediterranean (GWP-Med) in the context of the project labelled by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) “Governance and Financing for the Mediterranean Water Sector”, with the support of the FEMIP Trust Fund of the European Investment Bank.
Water is a vital resource for human health, economic development and environmental quality. Over the past three decades, OECD Member countries have made major strides in the management of their water resources. Increasingly, however, water is coming back onto the policy agenda. Persistent water quality problems, the need for heavy investments in water delivery and treatment infrastructure, and growing competition for finite supplies are forcing greater attention on the mix of policies needed to achieve efficient and effective integrated water resources management.
The integrated management of water resources is not a new concept. The notion of "integration", however, is evolving. Greater emphasis is being given to the full recognition of the water needs of the environment in pricing policies, allocation decisions and institutional reform. There is also a growing number of examples of the integration of a wider range of stakeholders, including the private sector and local communities, in water resources planning and management.
This report presents the discussions and conclusions of the OECD workshop on sustainable water consumption, which was held in Sydney, Australia (10-12 February 1997). Drawing on examples from OECD Member countries and selected countries from the Asia-Pacific, it examines progress made on a range of key water policy issues and examines some of the more innovative attempts to put into practice a wider vision of integration.
This OECD Emission Scenario Document (ESD) is intended to provide information on the sources, use patterns, and potential release pathways of chemicals to be used in water washing machines at industrial and institutional laundries. The document presents standard approaches for estimating the environmental releases of and occupational exposures to chemicals used in water washing machines in laundries.
Over the past decade, many OECD countries have introduced new policies to tackle excessive waiting times for elective surgery with some success. However, in the wake of the recent economic downturn and severe pressures on public budgets, waiting times times may rise again, and it is important to understand which policies work. In addition, the European Union has introduced new regulations to allow patients to seek care in other member states, if there are long delays in treatment. This book provides a framework to understand why there are waiting lists for elective surgery in some OECD countries and not in others. It also describes how waiting times are measured in OECD countries, which differ widely, and makes recommendations for best practice. Finally, it reviews different policy approaches to tackling excessive waiting times. Some countries have introduced guarantees to patients that they will not wait too long for treatment. These policies work only if they are accompanied by sanctions on health providers to ensure the guarantee is met or if they allow greater choice of health-care providers including the private sector. Many countries have also introduced policies to expand supply of surgical services, but these policies have generally not succeeded in the long-term in bringing down waiting times. Given the increasing demand for elective surgery, some countries have experimented with policies to improve priorisation of who is entitled to elective surgery. These policies are promising, but difficult to implement.
Eradicating poverty has long been one of the priorities of development co-operation. Yet, despite undoubted progress towards this goal, the strategies adopted at the international and national levels remain controversial. Poverty reduction is a complex issue, involving numerous players in a host of economic, social, political and environmental policy fields. The originality of this publication lies in its approach to identifying best practice, an approach which is as open and thorough as the state of the art will allow. How realistic is it to seek to cut extreme poverty by half by the year 2015? What are the most effective strategies employed by donors, be they development agencies or developed countries? What lessons can be learned from the experience of the developing countries? Clearly, these and many other questions are still unresolved. This publication approaches them by giving a broad overview of general poverty-reduction strategies and objectives. It also presents five particularly enlightening case studies on Bolivia, Côte d’Ivoire, the State of Kerala in India, Malaysia and Uganda.
Traditionally, pay analysis in the public sector has been based on cross section data, such as average or median wages. This study differs in that micro longitudinal data are used to explain and compare pay determination in the French and Italian civil services. Based on examples, the report presents different readings obtained from aggregate data and individual longitudinal data. It focuses on the weight of various components of human capital -- gender, age, year of birth, seniority, educational level -- on trends in civil servants' pay throughout working life. This type of analysis sheds new light in the area of human resource management in the civil service and, in particular, may be seen as a key tool for analysing gender pay discrimination.
Do voluntary approaches deliver the expected environmental benefits? Do they help reach environmental targets in a cost-effective way? This report provides an assessment of the use of voluntary approaches building on a number of new case studies. Analysis is on the environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency and the administrative costs either used in isolation or as part of “policy mixes”. The book concludes that the environmental effectiveness of voluntary approaches is often questionable, and their economic efficiency is generally low.
Voluntary approaches are schemes whereby firms make commitments to improve their environmental performance.They cover arrangements such as public voluntary programmes, negotiated agreements or unilateral commitments. Until recently, voluntary approaches have not been subject to systematic analysis, inasmuch as, unlike taxes and tradable permits, they have not been prescribed by economic theory. Voluntary approaches were "invented" by those who devise and implement them: policy-makers, business associations, individual firms, non-governmental associations, etc.
The use of voluntary approaches in environmental policy (e.g.negotiated agreements between Government and industry) is spreading and attracting growing interest in OECD countries. This book provides a systematic analysis of the different types of voluntary approaches, their economic characteristics, their role and effectiveness.
This report reviews vehicle emissions standards in Europe, Japan and the United States, providing the reader with valuable comparisons. It also examines incentives for sulphur free fuels - which can contribute to reducing both conventional air emissions and carbon dioxide. It describes emissions control technologies and the impact of emissions on health and the environment and assesses the adequacy of emissions limits for new passenger cars and heavy duty diesel engines.
The reader will find in this publication the recommendations which the Round Table made on ways to combat vandalism, namely: the creation of local partnerships between all actors involved in crime prevention, policing and law enforcement; exchanges of experience; the issuing of guidelines on crime prevention and infrastructure design; and publication of case studies of successes and failures.
Economic valuation is widely used in OECD countries as a way of assessing the (usually monetary) value of goods that have no markets. In the rural context, valuation methods are used to argue for or against projects and policy choices in areas as diverse as agricultural support policies, local economic development, land use and biodiversity assessment.
This volume reviews a range of different valuation methodologies -- stated preferences, cost-benefit, revealed preferences, and others -- and looks at how these different approaches influence choices in rural policy. Its aim is to assess whether some set of international guidelines or standards could be used to reduce the subjectivity of the evidentiary information.
The experience of transport systems users, in terms of comfort, reliability, safety and above all convenience, is critical in determining demand for transport services, at least when there is a choice of alternative ways to travel. Convenience is one of the strongest attractions of the private car for passenger transport. For users of public transport, convenience is also clearly important but not always clearly defined and not often measured in designing transport systems or monitoring their operating performance. In many situations, an increase in public transport convenience reduces the unit costs of travel (euros/dollars per hour or cents per minute) and so provides benefits equivalent to an increase in travel speed.
This report focuses on convenience and its importance to the user experience. It reviews operational definitions of convenience, evidence for the willingness of users to pay for convenience and the use of indicators to assess and improve the convenience of public transport, with a view to making it more effective and more competitive.
This is the first study of the Value-Added Tax (VAT) systems of the ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe preparing for integration into the European Union (EU). The study offers a comparative evaluation of the main features of the VAT systems between the ten countries surveyed and provides a commentary on the development of the VAT systems in line with the VAT legislation of the EU.