OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría today welcomed Brazil’s further engagement with the Organisation’s world-leading global education assessment programme (PISA) during a signing ceremony in Brasilia with Brazil’s Minister for Education Aloízio Mercadante.

Brazil has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty and inequality. This reduction is explained by strong growth but also by effective social policies. Besides growth, public services and cash transfers have played the biggest role, the latter notably through the successful "Bolsa Familia" programme.

Hoje, a OCDE lança no Brasil, e na presença da lenda do futebol Pelé, o Índice para uma Vida Melhor totalmente em português. Este é o sexto idioma em que o site está disponível e a tradução permite que a OCDE alcance mais de 240 milhões de falantes de português ao redor do mundo.

Sustaining high agricultural growth is critical to Brazil's overall development given the importance of agriculture and agro-industries to the national economy and the resource potential that has yet to be exploited.

s part of ongoing efforts to deepen longstanding ties between the OECD and Brazil, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría will conduct an official visit on 3-5 November.

Brazil has made significant progress in building a reputation for sound fiscal policy since it passed the Fiscal Responsibility Law in 2000. In recent years, however, the fiscal situation has become more difficult as public spending and gross debt have risen.

A educação, a proteção social e o empreendedorismo estão entre as áreas em que são necessárias ações prioritárias para acelerar o crescimento e combater as desigualdades econômicas na América Latina, de acordo com a OCDE.

The OECD Working Group on Bribery reaffirms the importance of the independence of prosecutors and judges and is concerned that Brazil’s achievements in fighting corruption may be seriously jeopardised by recent legislative developments.

This book examines the gains that might be made by a territorial approach to policymaking that integrates sectoral policies, fosters value-added in rural activities, and links SME-development and FDI-attraction policies as well as innovation capacities and applications.

This book examines regional innovation in central and southern Denmark, looking at its role in the economy, its governance and policy context and regional strategies for innovation driven growth.

OECD signed agreement for a peer review with the Comptroller General of Chile

Indonesia has improved its macro-economic and structural policies over the last 15 years. Its economy, with strong and stable growth rates of 5–6.6%, is catching up with other countries in the region and allowing Indonesia to focus on its development agenda.

Indonesia has come a long way in improving its tax system over the last decade, both in terms of revenues raised and administrative efficiency. Nonetheless, the tax take is still low, given the need for more spending on infrastructure and social protection.

The challenge for fiscal policy in Slovakia is to achieve fiscal consolidation in a way which supports the fragile recovery and protects spending on areas which are important for re-embarking on a trajectory of high trend growth and underpinning a catch-up in living standards.

This publication looks at regional innovation in Wallonia, Belgium, by examining the political context, governance issues and the role of innovation in the economy, along with regional innovation strategies to promote growth.

Intergovernmental fiscal frameworks usually reflect fundamental societal choices and history and are not foremost geared towards achieving economic policy objectives. Yet, like most institutional arrangements, fiscal relations affect the behaviour of firms, households and governments and thereby economic activity.

This workshop is to discuss the policy relevance of inequalities in the access to services in regions and cities, including the institutional and territorial organization for service delivery.

Well-functioning judicial systems play a crucial role in determining economic performance – notably by guaranteeing the security of property rights and the enforcement of contracts – but not all countries’ judiciaries operate at the same level of efficiency.

Mexico has achieved a high degree of decentralisation in public services, but the Mexican fiscal federal system has important shortcomings. States and municipalities have become heavily dependent on federal transfers to finance a growing share of public spending.

Good public policies are central to well-functioning economies. Better policies on innovation, combined with high-quality regulations and a more efficient public administration, can help Colombia create jobs, boost economic growth and support development, according to three new OECD reports.

This blog, by Wikichild co-ordinator Melinda George, takes a look at the well-being aspects and the quality of public service provision in the OECD's "Government at a Glance 2013" report. The post is part of Wikiprogress' December spotlight on governance.

This review addresses the territorial dimension of a range of policy challenges in the Ukraine, including Ukraine's productivity challenge, large inter-regional disparities, and need for decentralisation.

Greece could save its businesses hundreds of millions of euros a year and improve their competitiveness by reducing administrative burdens, according to a new OECD report.

Whistleblowing is an essential element for safeguarding the public interest and for promoting a culture of public accountability and integrity. The majority of OECD countries have recently passed legislation protecting whistleblowers and yet, despite being high on the agenda, successful whistleblowing stories are rare.

Uncertainty faced by households and firms affects economic activity. The rise in uncertainty since the beginning of the sovereign debt crisis in Greece could be one factor that has contributed to the steep and long-lasting recession. This paper presents a brief empirical analysis quantifying this phenomenon and compares it with developments in Ireland and Portugal.

Jointly organised by the OECD, Duke University and IRGC, this international conference will identify, evaluate and discuss the relevance and effectiveness of new approaches to improving risk governance, both as they result from responding to and learning from crises, and as deliberate innovations in how regulatory power is exercised and shared.

OECD blog article on the lobbying, written for the launch of the publication "Lobbyists, Government and Public Trust, Volume 3".

This country review series assesses countries public governance ability in delivering government objectives and determines their preparedness to meet current and future challenges.

The Government of Mexico have requested an OECD Integrity Review focusing on anti-corruption, conflict of interest prevention and integrity in the public service.

This report is the first joint OECD Public Governance Review between two countries. The Report discusses challenges in whole-of-government strategy steering and the opportunities of digital government.

Hermosillo scores 96% in implementing the recommendations of the Guide on improving the regulatory quality of formalities at the municipal level

This conference provided a multi-disciplinary forum to discuss issues of regulatory reform involving both government and non-government actors.

Blog article by Cobus de Swardt, Managing Director of Transparency International, written for the OECD Integrity Forum 2015.

This review particularly recommends shifting away from income taxation to indirect taxation, for instance by raising more revenue from the Goods and Services Tax.

When we think about water scarcity, we tend to focus on drinking water. But in terms of global usage, drinking water accounts for only 8% of water use, with 22% used by industry and 70% for farming and irrigation. Effective water governance must mediate across a broad set of actors and needs that cut across all economic sectors.

Measuring regulators’ performance can strengthen the contribution of regulatory policies to sustainable growth and development. While measuring a regulator’s performance is a fundamental function of a “world class” regulator, it is challenging, starting with the definition of what should be measured and including the attribution of outcomes to regulators’ actions and the availability of robust and evidence-based evaluation

China needs a new model of urbanisation to match the shift to a new model of growth. For decades, both urbanisation and growth have been based on robust export demand, cheap labour, cheap land and artificially low pricing of environmental externalities. None of these can support growth or urban development in the future.

The OECD and Ukraine today signed an Action Plan for strengthening co-operation to help tackle corruption, improve public governance and the rule of law, boost investment and foster a dynamic business environment.

Colombia has engaged in a sustained process of fiscal decentralisation over the past decades. Evidence is presented that the current framework is conducive to fiscal sustainability, especially after the reforms in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The recent riots in Baltimore following the death of Freddy Gray bring a tragic focus, once again, on inequality. Maryland’s largest city, Baltimore is a perfect laboratory to study it, thanks in part to the superb comparative statistics the city keeps. OECD Insights Blog.

In January of this year I visited the Mexican state of Tabasco– a state crossed by rivers and facing the Gulf of Mexico. The state’s population has doubled over the past 30 years and its economy relies heavily on oil and natural gas resources. It has its challenges as well: unemployment, poverty and a lack of resources.

This paper contributes to the scarce literature on the macroeconomic effects of property taxes, in particular on the relationships between property taxes, house prices and the wider economy.

Better access to and use of public sector information (PSI), including open government data, are inter-related parts of the shift towards knowledge-based economies, and drivers of innovation, growth and employment. PSI can be used directly to generate products and services, and it contributes in a wide variety of ways to improving efficiency and productivity across the economy (including within the public sector).

The Public Governance Review of Lithuania was launched in Vilnius on 19 June 2015 as part of the closing event of Lithuania’s Open Progress Forum "Innovative Public Sector – Mission (Im)possible?".

The annual meeting of the OECD Schools of Government Network on the theme of Skills for a World Class Civil Service will be held on 6 July 2015, at the OECD in Paris.

This working paper explores avenues to improve public sector efficiency in Latvia, a catching-up and ageing economy where spending needs are large.

With gross government debt of 226% of GDP, Japan’s fiscal situation is in uncharted territory and puts the economy at risk. Japan needs a detailed and credible fiscal consolidation plan, including specific revenue increases and measures to control spending to restore its fiscal sustainability.

Brazil has made significant progress in building a reputation for sound fiscal policy since it passed the Fiscal Responsibility Law in 2000. In recent years, however, the fiscal situation has become more difficult as public spending and gross debt have risen.

This paper analyses income inequality in Ireland using a new panel dataset based on the administrative tax records of the Revenue Commissioners for Ireland.

This report analyses the strengths and weaknesses of Ireland’s system of parliamentary engagement in budgeting, and outlines a number of proposals for reform.