In a globally interdependent world, a better financial and investment system cannot be achieved on a country-by-country basis. There may be no one-size-fits-all model for economic development, but without global standards and complementary regulations, the long-term outlook for the world economy will remain bleak.

Jose Angel Gurria

We need to make growth greener, to make our economic and environmental policies more compatible and even mutually-reinforcing. This is not just a matter of new technologies or new sources of renewable, safe energy. It is about how we all behave every day of our lives, what we eat, what we drink, what we recycle, re-use, repair, how we produce and how we consume

Jose Angel Gurria

environmental growth technology

The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries.

Jose Angel Gurria

poverty social country

While we have put an utmost emphasis on Gross Domestic Products (GDP) as a barometer for the overall economy until now, we have not paid much attention in detecting a level of social welfare. We, as a member of the society, must now take steps to create an index to indicate other critical elements to be focused on in order to restore reliability of world statistics.

Jose Angel Gurria

gdp elements order

Improving the quality of our lives should be the ultimate target of public policies. But public policies can only deliver best fruit if they are based on reliable tools to measure the improvement they seek to produce in our lives.

Jose Angel Gurria

target quality tools

Many governments are giving subsidies to fossil fuel production and consumption that encourage greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as they are spending on projects to promote clean energy. This is a wasteful use of scarce budget resources.

Jose Angel Gurria

fossils government giving

It takes collaboration across a community to develop better skills for better lives.

Jose Angel Gurria

better collaboration community skills

Ending our reliance on fossil fuels was never going to be easy.

Jose Angel Gurria

fossil-fuels ending never easy

Gender equality is essential for ensuring that men and women can contribute fully at home, at work, and in public life for the betterment of societies and economies at large.

Jose Angel Gurria

women work men life

Creating a global platform for collaboration in education research and innovation has been the PISA initiative's aspiration from its conception in the late 1990s.

Jose Angel Gurria

innovation late research education

Social cohesion and inclusive growth are additional crucial perspectives to incorporate into public policies, targeting a renewed social contract that reduces inequalities and benefits the whole of society.

Jose Angel Gurria

inclusive growth society social

The concept of national treatment is a core component of investment and trade agreements. It promotes valuable competition on a level playing field. Investment treaties should not turn this idea on its head, giving privileges to foreign companies that are not available to domestic companies.

Jose Angel Gurria

turn investment competition giving

Unlike other essential goods, like clothing, shelter, or food, we take cheap or even free water for granted. It often takes a crisis, such as a major drought or flood, to spur investment and policy reforms in improving water security.

Jose Angel Gurria

free security food water

In a world that places a growing premium on social skills, education systems need to do much better at fostering those skills systematically across the school curriculum.

Jose Angel Gurria

better education world school

Every country faces its own obstacles to reaching gender equality, and to make a real difference, we must change public policies in tandem with stereotypes, attitudes, and behaviors.

Jose Angel Gurria

gender obstacles equality change

Integrity delivers better lives.

Jose Angel Gurria

lives better integrity

We are totally schizophrenic. We are trying to reduce emissions, and we subsidize the consumption of fossil fuels.

Jose Angel Gurria

fuels fossil-fuels emissions trying

You do need more revenues, and you do need to cut expenses. But you also don't want to go in a direction whereby increasing taxes creates a reticence to create new jobs. You don't want to increase taxes on work. You don't want to increase taxes on investment and the creation of wealth.

Jose Angel Gurria

direction new you work

European leaders cannot afford to be afraid. The refugee crisis is not one from which they can opt out. No magic wand will empower leaders to transport more than a million people back across the Aegean and the Bosphorus to Mosul and Aleppo, or across the Mediterranean to Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan.

Jose Angel Gurria

will back magic people

High levels of inequality generate high costs for society, dampening social mobility, undermining the labour market prospects of vulnerable social groups, and creating social unrest.

Jose Angel Gurria

high inequality creating society

A more robust approach to global warming is needed if we are to avoid catastrophe. Unlike the recent financial crisis, there is no bailout option for the earth's climate.

Jose Angel Gurria

more global-warming crisis earth