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OECD Environmental Performance Reviews provide independent assessments of countries’ progress towards their environmental policy objectives. Reviews promote peer learning, enhance government accountability, and provide targeted recommendations aimed at improving environmental performance, individually and collectively. They are supported by a broad range of economic and environmental data, and evidence-based analysis. Each cycle of Environmental Performance Reviews covers all OECD countries and selected partner economies. The most recent reviews include Chile and France (2016).
This report is the third Environmental Performance Review of Korea. It evaluates progress towards sustainable development and green growth, with a focus on waste and materials management, and environmental justice.

This report identifies 12 recommendations that can assist the municipality of Outokumpu and the region of North Karelia in Finland to become key players in the national mining strategy and attain sustainable economic growth by: focusing on mobilising the potential of the local mining value chain, diversifying and developing new sources of economic growth, and improving governance co-ordination. It is part of a project that is building a platform for knowledge sharing and co-operation on increasing productivity and enhancing the well-being of cities and regions with a specialisation in the mining and extractive sector (metals, minerals, and energy resources).

The OECD Public Governance Review of the Czech Republic identifies priority governance areas for reform in the Czech Republic and offers recommendations to strengthen the effectiveness, agility and responsiveness of the country’s public sector. The review first provides a snapshot on the effectiveness of the public administration and its capacity to address contemporary governance challenges, such as digitalisation and climate change. It then analyses a number of critical and priority public governance areas including citizen engagement, centre-of-government-led co-ordination and strategic planning, evidence-informed policy making in the Czech public administration, public administration at the local and regional level, human resources management in the public administration, and digital government. It also includes a case study on governance arrangements and regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The review provides recommendations for the Czech public administration to help it implement its Public Administration Reform Strategy: Client-oriented Public Administration 2030 (PAR), achieve the objectives of the PAR, and, ultimately, realise its longer-term sustainable development vision and commitments.

The OECD Regional Outlook 2011 provides an overview of the main developments in performance among OECD regions and the challenges for regional policy after the crisis. The first two chapters present fresh analysis of regional growth and labour-market trends, exploring their implications for policy. This is followed by three chapters offering focused analyses of key policy issues. The first, and most immediate, concerns the state of sub-national government finances in the wake of the crisis and its implications for managing public investment, in particular, during a period of austerity. The next two chapters are concerned with the potential contribution of regions and regional policies to addressing the longer-term challenges of innovation and green growth. Part 3 of the Outlook presents a "policy forum", a wide-ranging debate on the role of regional policy today involving experts and officials from within and outside the OECD. Finally, the Outlook includes individual country pages providing detailed quantitative and qualitative information on regional performance, institutions and policy settings in OECD members.

Regions and cities are on the front lines of many challenges faced by OECD countries today, from education and jobs to health care and quality of life. Getting regions and cities “right”, adapting policies to the specificities of where people live and work,  is vital to improving citizens’ well-being. This second edition of the OECD Regional Outlook aims to help countries do just that. Part I describes the main trends and challenges today. Part II has a special focus on cities, looking at public investment, urban framework policies, and rural-urban issues. Part III presents a Policy Forum on the future of cities, with five contributions from distinguished authors and policy makers. Part IV offers profiles of regional development in all 34 OECD countries.

Regions and cities are where the effects of policies to promote economic growth and social inclusion are felt in day-to-day life. The OECD Regional Outlook 2016 examines the widening productivity gap across regions within countries, and the implications of these trends for the well-being of people living in different places. It discusses how structural policies, public investment and multi-level governance reforms can help boost productivity and address inclusion. Drawing on a survey of OECD countries, the Outlook  highlights country practices in regional, urban, and rural development policy that guide public investment. The Special Focus Part II on rural areas looks at different types of rural area and their productivity performance trends, and suggests that countries move towards a “Rural Policy 3.0”. The Policy Forum on Regions and Cities: Implementing Global Agendas includes chapters by many leading global organisations on how regions and cities can be instrumental in achieving the targets of agreements such as the Paris Accord and the Sustainable Development Goals.  Individual country profiles provide an overview of regional, urban and rural development policies as well as performance in terms of productivity and well-being among different regions.

Large and persistent inequalities in regional economic performance within countries exist throughout the OECD. The 2019 Regional Outlook discusses the underlying causes of economic disparities across regions and highlights the need for place-based policies to address them. The report makes the case that place-based policies are especially important in light of growing public discontent with the economic, social and political status quo in many regions. The geographical patterns of public discontent are closely related to the degree of regional inequalities and policies to address public discontent need to have a place-based dimension.

Place-based policies will become even more important in the future due to several technological, demographic and environmental megatrends. This Regional Outlook emphasises that all regions will be affected by these megatrends, but their effects will vary from region to region, even within the same country. Appropriate policy responses need to take this diversity into account and should be tailored to the region-specific impacts of global megatrends. Insofar as possible, this Regional Outlook presents steps that policy makers can take today to make the next generation of regional policies fit for the future.

Over the last two decades, regional inequalities have remained significant, and have grown within many OECD countries. Impacts of recent shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and megatrends, threaten to widen these gaps between regions, deepening the longstanding geography of inequalities. This report, Regional Outlook 2023 – The Longstanding Geography of Inequalities, provides novel evidence on the evolution of inequalities between OECD regions across several dimensions (including income and access to services) over the past twenty years. It sheds light on the role of productivity to address regional inequalities. It also looks at the costs of regional inequalities, which can weaken the economic, social, and political fabric, and lead to a geography of discontent. Furthermore, the report explores forward-looking scenarios for regions as part of ongoing reflections to future-proof regional development policy and secure social cohesion. Finally, it provides a policy roadmap to guide governments’ efforts to reduce persistent regional inequalities now and in the future.

OECD Regions and Cities at a Glance presents indicators on individual regions and cities since the turn of the new millennium. It provides a comprehensive picture of past successes and likely challenges that regions and cities in OECD members and partner countries will face in their efforts to build stronger, more sustainable and more resilient economies. By relying on a combination of traditional and more innovative data sources, OECD Regions and Cities at a Glance describes the evolving nature of spatial disparities within countries from a multidimensional perspective. New topics covered by this edition include the economic impact of recent shocks, such as the pandemic and the energy crisis, housing affordability, climate change and digitalisation.

OECD Regions at a Glance presents a series of indicators for OECD countries that will enable policy makers and analysts to evaluate differences in economic performance among regions and to better design and assess regional policies. Organised around three major themes, the book first examines regions' contributions to national growth in population, employment, and the economy.  The book then looks at regional disparities in terms of incomes, activity rates and unemployment and regional assets in terms of skills available, productivity, and industrial specialisation.  Finally, it presents a series of regional indicators for variables likely to be key to a regions competitiveness including accessibility, education, health resources, safety, and environment.