Fighting the tide

This post by Kathleen Dominique from the OECD Environment Directorate is part of the Wikiprogress series on 'Water' and the 'Environment'. 

Preparing for the water-related impacts of climate change

Headlines of record‑breaking water-related disasters around the world – whether flood or drought – are a sign of things to come. As Lord Stern recently warned, the extreme weather events witnessed in many parts of the world reflect “a pattern of global change that it would be very unwise to ignore”. Recently, the UK and French floods have been in the news, but flooding is just one type of natural disaster and in fact, if you look at 2012 data from Munich Re, floods account for less than 13% of economic losses from natural hazards compared to 59% for storms and 16% for forest fires and droughts – hence the need to think broadly about water security.

© Dachalan, 2007

Water-related impacts are one of the main ways that we are seeing and feeling the effects of climate change. We can expect more torrential rains, floods and droughts in many areas. Events that were once considered “exceptional circumstances” are now becoming commonplace.

The cost of impacts of these events can be substantial and are set to rise in the future. According to data gathered in a recent OECD survey on water and climate change adaptation, flood risk is projected to increase significantly across the UK. Annual damage to UK properties due to flooding from rivers and the sea currently totals around GBP 1.3 billion. For England and Wales alone, the figure is projected to rise to between GBP 2.1 billion and GBP 12 billion by the 2080s, based on future population growth and if no adaptive action is taken.

A recent OECD review of actions governments are taking to prepare for water-related impacts of climate change found that nearly all OECD countries ranked extreme events (floods and droughts) among their primary concerns. This comprehensive review of policies for water and climate change adaptation is one way that the OECD has been tracking progress on preparing for a more risky and more uncertain future.

At the OECD, we recommend governments undertake a robust assessment of risks – and that’s somewhere we’re seeing progress. In fact, it’s one of the most active areas of climate change adaptation in OECD countries. This is positive – but this evidence base then needs to spur action. Governments need to determine what is an “acceptable level” of risk by balancing the benefits and costs of taking pre-emptive action. On the one hand, nobody wants to have their property flooded, but on the other, completely eliminating flood risk is often not possible and a high-level of protection is very costly. Once an acceptable level of risk has been set, governments need to explore the options open to them, and that includes sharing responsibility between the public and private sectors when investing in infrastructure, devising insurance schemes, as well as in emergency response.  

As we expect to see more severe weather events around the world, we need to understand that anticipation can avoid future costs. For example, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre estimates that EUR 1 invested in flood protection can result in EUR 6 of avoided damage costs. Investments in early warning systems and emergency preparedness have significantly reduced casualties in Hurricane-prone countries. Austria and Germany made smart investments in flood defences after floods in 2002, and that served them well when water levels rose again last year.

However, sometimes avoiding risks altogether is cheaper than building infrastructure to protect against them. Protection measures are not only about building hard infrastructure but we can use innovative architecture and landscape solutions – such as “green roofs”, “blue belts” or restored wetlands – so that nature is part of the solution.

That said, since we can’t predict the exact timing or magnitude of weather events, it’s very hard to get the timing and investment level right when taking preventative action. At a time when many governments are working under tight budget constraints, it’s even more vital that investments are well-thought out. The most cost-effective approaches to climate change adaptation are the most flexible and forward-looking ones, and the OECD has recommended a range of policy tools and investment approaches. This includes infrastructure design and financing techniques that can be scaled up or down over time, as needed. 

To see what OECD countries are doing to help prepare, check out www.oecd.org/env/resources/waterandclimatechange.htm

Trust in Government: Causes, consequences and solutions

This blog post on trust in governments is a compilation of presentations given at the OECD Workshop entitled "Joint Learning for an OECD Trust Strategy", held on 14 October 2013. The post, composed by Melinda Deleuze, is part of Wikiprogress' December spotlight on governance.

During the workshop, a variety of topics were discussed regarding trust in governments. Some common themes were why measuring trust is important, how to measure trust, the reflection of trust in governments on quality of governments, the crisis' impact on trust and reasons for lack of trust.

To give some highlights:

• Trust in government is intermingled with many other areas, namely:
• policy effectiveness
• economic policy
• the economy
• the economic crisis
• compliance
• accountability
• regulation
• education
• social capital

• After the crisis, in Iceland, trust in institutions remained relatively high, trust in politicians very low, and voter turnout relatively high.
• To strengthen the quality of government, there should be:
• free universal education
• universal social services/insurance systems
• fairness (impartiality) in the implementation of public policies
• merit-based recruitment and promotion to the civil service
• gender equality

•  Unemployment has a strong, negative effect on trust in public institutions. 

In the presentation below, Yann Algan discusses the relationships between institutions, inequality/segmentation and trust. He also examines how to identify impact of policy on trust.

In the presentation below, Tracy Burns discusses trends in governance and education, satisfaction with the education system, accountability, and positive outcomes possible with educated adults.

 

In the presentation below,  Diane Coyle discusses how trust affects the economy and the challenges faced.

In the presentation below, Dóra Györffy discusses trust in-depth including its relationship with decision-making, economic policy, popularity of government and its influence on the crisis.

In the presentation below, Pall Thorhallsson discusses the pre-crash situation, the nature of the 2008 crash, and the crash's impact on trust. He also mentions reasons for the lacking trust.

 

In the presentation below, Marco Mira d’Ercole discusses the interest and importance of trust, how trust should be measured and trust's broader relationship with the quality of democratic institutions.

 

In the presentation below, Felix Roth discusses the consequences of citizens declining trust and the driving factors of declining trust in Europe. He also provides an econometric analysis of trust and unemployment.

In the presentation below,  Bo Rothstein discusses how to capture the quality of government and its impact on social trust. He also provides suggestions for what can be done to strengthen quality of government.

In the presentation below, Frédérique Six discusses effective regulation, the trust triangle, compliance and a trust regime.

In the presentation below,  Mario Solis-Garcia discusses why trust matters and uses a simple economic model to see how government trust influences environment, government, households and timing.

 

 

  

 

The time is ripe for evidence

This blog, written by Rebecca Kilburn & Michael Frearson (RAND), is about the increasing commitment to use more child well-being evidence when making policy-related decisions. The post is a part of the Wikiprogress December Series on Governance.

Earlier this year, the European Commission renewed its commitment to promoting child well-being and made a recommendation entitled ‘Investing in children – breaking the cycle of disadvantage’ as part of the Social Investment Package to promote that goal. One of the guidelines was to strengthen the use of evidence-based policy. This particular recommendation is noteworthy, because it represents one of the first times that the European Commission has specifically advocated the use of evidence in policy making.
 
The field of education initiated several research synthesis projects early in the century, including the Best Evidence Encyclopedia and the What Works Clearinghouse in the US. More recently, the European Commission established the online European Platform for Investing in Children (EPIC), which screens and summarises evidence-based information related to children and their families across the EU and also provides a pan-European mechanism for individuals to share lessons learned in child policy and practice.

The demand for information about what works in the field of child and family services has grown due to the desire to ensure that tighter budgets are used effectively, coupled with the greater accountability that decision-makers face. In the early 1990s when the Cochrane Collaboration began gathering and pooling medical studies, an analogous project in the field of child and family policy would have been unthinkable due to a dearth of studies that would have met the criteria for high-quality evidence. But now there is a growing supply of research accumulating to inform child and family policy, and that research is increasingly meeting high standards of evidence. It employs rigorous methods, such as randomised trials, and there is now a sufficient quantity and quality of evidence to enable the aggregation of evidence-information in a systematic way.

As the supply of rigorous studies in the field of child and family policy has grown, so too have the resources that summarise evidence-based information for decision makers. In the United States, at least nine evidence-based practice platforms (EBPs) present information and EBP resources that include evidence that relates to child and family services there. In the EU, EPIC provides information on policies and practices which can help children and families cope with the current challenges which emerged due to the European economic climate. A central component of this project is an online repository of evidence-based practice. The ‘Practices that Work’ section of EPIC gathers, reviews and summarises evidence on effective strategies across the 28 member states.

Today’s austerity measures are unprecedented in the history of the EU. In 2013, EU leaders cut its seven-year budget for the first time ever. Additionally, major stakeholders such as Eurochild have noted that the well-being of children across the EU has deteriorated in the last year as result of the economic crisis. Recognition of the impact of the financial crisis on children, and the lingering austere economic climate, has led public and private supporters of child and family services to further scrutinise expenditures. Decision makers want to ensure that their limited funds are being used for policies and services that are effective. At the same time that funding for child and family services has come under strain, policymakers at all levels of government have also been subject to greater accountability than in the past.

Decision makers now have much easier access to a growing amount of evidence-based information related to children’s issues than in the past. A number of considerations can help put this information to best use:

First, even though the supply and quality of evidence-based information is greater now than ever before, it is not necessarily the case that evidence-based information should be given more weight than other factors that contribute to decision making. Evidence is an important piece of the policy making puzzle, but other factors, such as political considerations, values, funding and experience will necessarily also need to contribute to decision making. Innovation also matters greatly, as does facilitating the exchange of experience and practical lessons learned. Still, evidence has a place at the policy making table, and platforms such as EPIC are but one of the strategies for making evidence more useful for decision making.

Second, the supply and quality of information is highly variable across sub-fields of child policy. In an age of burgeoning availability of information, decision makers can take advantage of evidence platforms to help understand what is the ‘best available evidence’ that relates to children’s issues.

Third, decision makers will need to adapt evidence to meet local conditions, as evidence from around the EU is generated in differing contexts. The User Registry located within the ‘Practices that Work’ section of the EPIC website enables the capture of a number of practices and information on innovative practices to be shared with users and stakeholders. In doing so, it recognises that a variety of approaches may be chosen by stakeholders and practitioners.

Finally, decision makers can contribute to better policy making by sharing experiences and innovations in children’s policy, aggregating lessons learned in using evidence in the same way that the research evidence itself is aggregated. Evidence-based platforms (EBPs) such as EPIC recognise the importance of collective experience with features to capture and share this type of information in addition to aggregating the research evidence.

 A way forward may be for not-for-profit organisations and charities to encourage funders (be they government or alternative sources) to increase the share of funds available for evaluations. This approach would help meet requirements to provide evidence from evaluations where it is needed, and strengthen the evidence base. In countries such as the United States, approaches to evaluations have shifted from a pass/fail typology to a focus on Continuous Quality Improvement and program improvement. Evidence-based platforms favour such an approach, which can help individual programs and entire fields of intervention to become more effective through evaluation and evidence.

Dr Rebecca Kilburn is the co-Principal Investigator of the European Platform for Investing in Children project at RAND. She served as Director of the Promising Practices Network (PPN) on Children, Families and Communities for nearly 15 years. In this capacity, she helped develop the evidence criteria and processes used to conduct reviews, and she has overseen hundreds of systematic reviews of child and family programmes. During her 20 years at RAND, much of Dr Kilburn’s research has examined the effects of public and private investments in childhood. 

 Dr Michael Frearson is a Research Leader for education and skills at RAND Europe. He has more than 15 years’ experience working with schools, further and higher education and work-based learning. Michael has directed research on children, young people, employment and skills and conducted high-profile evaluations of flagship public policy interventions for children and young people, such as the Play Pathfinders and Play Builders programme and the Learner Home Access to Technology programme (for the UK Department for Education).   

This blog first appeared as on 2 December, 2013 on the Alliance for Useful Evidence website, as well as a RAND Europe technical note.