Going for Growth is the OECD’s regular report on structural reforms in policy areas that have been identified as priorities to boost incomes in OECD and selected non-OECD countries (Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Latvia, Russian Federation and South Africa). Policy priorities are updated every two years and presented in a full report, which includes individual country notes with detailed policy recommendations to address the priorities.The next full report will be published in 2017.
This interim report takes stock of the actions taken by governments over the past two years in the policy areas identified as priorities for growth. This stocktaking is supported by internationally comparable indicators that enable countries to assess their economic performance and structural policies in a wide range of areas.
This report Farm Management Practices to Foster Green Growth looks at farm management practices with green growth potential, from farmer-led innovations (such as those directly linked to soil and water, Integrated Pest Management, organic farming) to science-led technologies (such as biotechnology and precision agriculture).
Development of industry in Zimbabwe has been widely acknowledged as one of the leading sources of current environmental and energy efficiency challenges affecting the country. Several challenges exist that affect widespread adoption of energy efficient technologies including implementation of policy framework for energy efficiency, ageing equipment, inadequate funding mechanisms, limited information, few economic incentives for SMEs to invest in energy efficiency, low technical capability of SMEs to implement energy efficiency, limited institutional sustainability of agencies involved in promotion of energy efficiency, and low uptake of energy management standards.
The global economy produces energy from two sources: a polluting non-renewable resource and a renewable resource. Transforming crude energy into ready-to-use energy services requires costly processes and more efficient energy transformation rates are more costly to achieve. Renewable energy is in competition with food production for land acreage but the food productivity rate of land can also be improved at some cost. The exploitation of non-renewable energy releases polluting emissions in the atmosphere. To avoid catastrophic climate damages, the pollution stock is mandated to stay below a given cap. In the interesting case where the economy would be constrained by the carbon cap at least temporarily, we show the following. When the economy is not constrained by the cap, the efficiency rates of energy transformation increase steadily until the transition toward the ultimate green economy; when renewable energy is exploited, its land acreage rises at the expense of food production; food productivity increases together with the land rent but food production drops; the prices of useful energy and food increase and renewables substitute for non-renewable energy.
Given the broad (economic, social and environmental) objectives of a green economy, and the limitations associated with mainstream measures of economic performance (such as gross domestic product), an alternative or expanded set of indicators is required for measuring progress toward a green economy. This article develops a composite index for measuring green economic performance, based on 26 indicators across the economic, social and environmental dimensions. The index will enable comparison of a country's green economic performance both over time and relative to other countries. Furthermore, the index is constructed in such a way as to allow for disaggregation (i.e. for scores on individual components to be seen at a glance), such that areas of specific concern can be easily identified and addressed, and progress in each area monitored over time. The index was tested on data from 193 countries, and the resulting country rankings were assessed.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) not only affects the economic growth but also affects the environmental protection of the host country. With China’s background of pursuing green growth, we need to consider the performance of FDI from the economic and environmental benefit aspects. On this basis, using slacks-based measure directional distance function (SBMDDF) to build up green growth efficiency, economic efficiency and environmental efficiency indexes, empirical research on FDI in 104 Chinese cities from 2004 to 2011 has shown that: (1) Different cities have differences in their green growth efficiency. Shenzhen city is always efficient in green economic growth. (2) Overall, FDI is positive on Chinese cities’ green growth. (3) When the green growth efficiency is broken down into economic efficiency and environmental efficiency, FDI promotes China’s economic green growth through both environmental benefits and economic benefits. (4) The effect of FDI differs in different sectors. FDI in the emission-intensive sector promotes green efficiency mainly through the improvement of economic efficiency.