SAU, Alm.del - 2010-11 (1. samling) - Bilag 54: Invitation til OECD konference "Making Reform Happen" 25.

1.Structural reforms are at the heart of OECD work. Over the years we have collected and analyseddata, peer reviewed the policies of member countries, identified best practices and given recommendations.We have worked with both member countries and non-members to advance their reform agendas and havedeveloped strategies for designing the most effective policies concerned with, among other things, growth,development, jobs, taxes, education, competition and, most recently, innovation. The potential for structuralreforms to enhance long-run productivity and growth performance has been highlighted by a large andgrowing body of OECD work, much of which has been showcased in successive editions of ourGoing forGrowthpublications. Increasingly, though, governments now tell us that effective politics is not only about“where to go” but also about “how to get there”. We have heard ministers ask “how to reform and to be re-elected” and “how to reform and to perform”.2.In response to these signals, in 2007 we started to look systematically at the political economy ofreform and to discuss this dimension in our committees and our Centres of Government working group.Almost all OECD countries face medium- and long-term structural challenges in the context of globalimbalances, climate change and population ageing. The current financial and economic crisis has underscoredthe importance of a capacity to deliver structural reforms - both by individual governments and by the widerefforts undertaken via international coordination. The need for better regulation, more jobs and fiscalconsolidation also point clearly to the importance of this capacity to deliver change. To put it bluntly: a crisisis a terrible thing to waste. While the content of reforms may differ from country to country and from domainto domain, the institutional and process aspects are possibly even more country-specific. We do not pretendthat political economy of reform is a subject that lends itself to “one size fits all” toolkits. On the other hand,we have been involved in so many reform attempts across the decades that it is worthwhile to identify whichlessons could be drawn and to focus on how we can best support our members in making reform happen. Thishas resulted in more alert support, including country-specific reports (i.e. on Mexico, France, Hungary..),seminars and projects on the realisation of reforms, and analytical work, under the horizontal responsibility ofDeputy Secretary-General Aart de Geus.3.In the analytical strand, a chapter in the 2007 edition of Going for Growth has been followed by twomajor companion studies. The first – The Political Economy of Reform: Lessons from Pensions, ProductMarkets and Labour Markets in Ten OECD Countries (2009) – describes and analyses both successful andless successful reforms in three major policy domains. The second – Making Reform Happen: Lessons fromOECD Countries (to be launched 26 November 2010) – presents cross-country lessons about the conduct ofreforms in nine key areas: fiscal consolidation, tax, environment, labour market (including pensions), health,education, public administration, competition and regulation. This report is meant to serve as a “palette” forpolicy makers who face the challenge of crafting and implementing structural reforms – a collection of“colours”, instrumental in realising reforms which deal with issues like communication, evidence, institutions,timing, costs and benefits, and engaging stakeholders. In the meantime, we recognise that process dimensionsare the subject of increasing discussion in our committees, so we expect that effective ways to realise reformsin different areas will be on our agendas in the coming years. From our findings it is clear that successfulreforms often build on earlier failed attempts. By sharing experiences, exchanging views, comparing practices,we can learn from each other to speed up and sustain reform efforts.4.The conference Making Reform Happen in Paris, 25-27 November, organized by OECD and theKorean Development Institute KDI, will bring together High Level Speakers and an international audience of1

MAKING REFORM HAPPEN – BACKGROUND NOTE