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Accounting for nearly 40% of global energy-related CO2 emissions and sometimes as much as 70% in large cities, buildings and construction are central to the low-carbon transition. Decarbonising buildings, especially the old stock, through energy efficiency improvements and renewable energy use, not only reduces carbon emissions, but also generates co-benefits in health, energy affordability and the labour market. Additionally, global mega-trends and the transition to a green recovery from COVID-19 provide impetus for stakeholders to take action. Cities and regions have a key role to play and can leverage prerogatives in regulation, public procurement and stakeholder engagement, while addressing multiple governance, capacity and funding gaps. To accelerate and scale up their action, cities and regions need to work with national governments to create an effective governance mechanism. Drawing on the findings of a dedicated survey of cities and regions of all sizes from both OECD and non-OECD countries, this report explains their significant role, explores sub-national policy measures, identifies key obstacles, and provides policy recommendations and a checklist for both national and subnational governments to drive the decarbonisation of buildings in cities and regions.

The report presents an in-depth analysis of various policies that aim to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of urban transport. Decarbonising transport lies at the core of efforts to mitigate climate change and has close links to urban sustainability and housing affordability. The report identifies the drivers of rising emissions in the urban transport sector and offers pathways to reduce them through a combination of transport and land use policies. The analysis yields a holistic welfare evaluation of these policies, assessing them according to their environmental effectiveness, their economic efficiency and their impact on fiscal balance and housing affordability. The report concludes that significant reductions in emissions from urban transport can be achieved through a careful alignment of transport policies designed to promote the use of public transit and electric vehicles, and land use policies, which foster a more compact urban form. The study is based on the case of Auckland, New Zealand but the lessons drawn are relevant for institutions and governments working on issues relating to urban sustainability, transport, housing and climate change mitigation.

This publication sheds light on the issue of decentralisation in Mexico. It shows that decentralisation can make decision-making more efficient and increase local participation in development issues. Decentralisation can provide a better framework to improve local infrastructure and to channel the necessary finance from public and private sources. The modernisation of infrastructure systems in Mexico's cities and regions would improve the quality of life and stimulate economic development, thus fostering entrepreneurship and employment. The initiatives being launched in Mexico in this direction constitute a major change of the country, one better adapted to the opportunities of the global economy and to the country's increasingly pluralistic system. Over time, Mexico will make better use of its own natural and human resources, reducing inequality and broadening opportunity throughout its territory.

Bulgaria has made solid progress in its territorial governance and socio-economic development. Yet, it has not been able to counteract large and increasing territorial disparities. Doing so will require addressing remaining structural challenges that may be limiting further transformation, government performance and regional resilience. It will also depend on shifting from a centrally-designed approach to regional development policy to one that incorporates subnational input and carefully considers regional specificities. Such a shift, coupled with a revitalised multi-level governance model to strengthen regional and municipal governance, could generate more balanced regional development and inclusive growth in Bulgaria. This multi-level governance study considers the avenues Bulgarian national and subnational authorities could take to ensure more place-based regional development and governance. It emphasises a comprehensive, yet incremental, approach to decentralisation and regionalisation reforms to generate more effective and balanced regional development.

This report has been prepared by the OECD upon request by the Portuguese Independent Commission for Decentralisation. Decentralisation and regionalisation reforms have recently emerged on the Portugal’s policy agenda, with two main objectives: assigning more tasks to municipalities and strengthening regional level governance. The report presents a diagnosis of Portugal multi-level governance in international perspectives and highlights the strengths and challenges of the system. It then presents three potential policy paths of regional reform for Portugal. As the options are not mutually exclusive, they could work as complements to each other. The report analyses the conditions under which the reforms may deliver more economic efficiency and regional equity.

COVID-19 has put renewed focus on the importance of addressing longstanding challenges that OECD governments face in delivering public services, especially in regions with people spread over a wider area where economies of scale are more difficult to achieve. The physical infrastructure needed to provide good quality education and health services can be more complex and expensive in rural and remote regions that also struggle to attract and retain education and health care professionals. Acute ageing trends in many rural regions and, in some cases, a shrinking population will require sustainable policy responses that will need to be coherent with pressure to drive efficiencies in public spending. This report examines the nuances specific to the delivery of education and health care to people everywhere, offering recommendations on how to better adapt provision to the realities of today and the emerging realities of tomorrow to face the challenges of distance, demographic change and fiscal belt-tightening. The report also examines digital connectivity issues in rural and remote regions, recognising the significant scope for digital delivery of services to mitigate challenges related to distance. Finally, the report looks at governance issues, including fiscal issues, through which the delivery of these critical services is administered and paid for.

This publication is part of the OECD workstream on Preparing Regions for Demographic Change. It elaborates a case study for the Portuguese region of Alentejo and focuses on improving the delivery of educational services taking into account the multi-level governance context. The study highlights the need to better articulate and co-ordinate the delivery of educational services among levels of government to improve access and quality. It also sheds light on the decisive role that geography plays and the importance of adopting a spatial lens to mitigate the rising inequality present in Portugal in access to education services. Alentejo is a rural region that expects to lose 30% of its population between 2020 and 2080, hence it needs to put in place forward-looking and effective policy levers to delivery sustainable education services to citizens living in rural communities.

Increasingly, countries are recognising the contribution social enterprises make to economic and inclusive growth and sustainable development. While some form of legislation on social enterprises exists in 16 EU countries, and explicit policies or strategies to boost their development exist in the other 11 EU countries, policy makers recognise that legislation can help address current shortcomings and facilitate future social enterprise development. Based on consultations with more than 80 experts, policy makers and stakeholders from 10 European countries, this manual explains the rationale behind legal frameworks for social enterprises, identifies the critical factors for legal framework design and recommends actions to ensure legislation fully meets the needs of social enterprises. It lays out the fundamental steps related to the life cycle of legal frameworks and provides options that policy makers can use in the design and implementation process.

In the last three years, multiple global crises and the growing urgency of containing climate change have put current models of development co-operation to, perhaps, their most radical test in decades. The goal of a better world for all seems harder to reach, with new budgetary pressures, demands to provide regional and global public goods, elevated humanitarian needs, and increasingly complex political settings. Critique of the roots, rationale and operations of the international aid system is resulting in calls for fundamental change, manifesting, for example, in the movements to address colonial legacies and racism in the sector. This 60th anniversary edition of the Development Co-operation Report takes stock of these challenges, and proposes ways forward along four lines of action: unlock progress to deliver existing commitments; support locally led transformation in partner countries; modernise business models and financial management practices; and rebalance power relations in international decision making and partnerships. The report draws on insights from heads of state, leaders of international organisations, practitioners, academia and civil society, with particular emphasis on voices representing the diverse experiences and perspectives of low- and middle-income countries and their populations.

This report provides an assessment of spatial inequalities and segregation in cities and metropolitan areas from multiple perspectives. The chapters in the report focus on a subset of OECD countries and non-member economies, and provide new insights on cross-cutting issues for city neighbourhooods, such as the patterns of segregation across income groups, migrant concentration and diversity across cities of different sizes, the role of public transport accessibility in widening intra-city inequalities, and the expected path dependency on outcomes related to segregation. The report also discusses methodological alternatives for measuring different dimensions of inequality and segregation across cities, and highlights the role of public policies in bridging urban divides and the relevance of the scale of analysis in order to make sound international comparisons.