Interview with Ebba Dohlman1

Abstract

Shaping the 21st Century, 1995; OECD Action for a Shared Development Agenda, 2002; and a dedicated chapter on PCD in the DAC Peer Reviews starting in 2002; At OECD corporate level through the creation of a PCD Unit in the Secretary-General’s Office in 2007; At the OECD ministerial level through the endorsement of a Ministerial Declaration on PCD in 2008; Council Recommendations on Good Institutional Practices to Promote PCD, 2010; and Strategy on Development, 2012; In OECD members through national PCD policies and strategies, institutional mechanisms, and reporting requirements; and In the European Union (EU) through specific provisions in the Lisbon Treaty. What are the main costs of incoherences? Since PCSD is a tool and approach and not an objective per se, an assessment of costs would have to be done on a case by case basis, and taking into account social, economic and environmental costs. [...]subsidies can have economic costs by distorting trade and competitiveness; environmental costs through overuse of natural resources and carbon emissions that spill over globally; redistributional costs when those subsidies benefit primarily the better off at the expense of the poor; and health impacts affecting livelihoods – air pollution kills more than three million people prematurely across the world every year. According to OECD studies, reducing global trade costs by 1% would increase worldwide income by more than USD 40 billion, 65% of which would go to developing countries3. [...]a world economy that is four times larger than today could be using up to 80% more energy – predominantly from fossil fuels, thereby increasing greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbating climate change with significant impacts on poor and vulnerable countries.