This chapter puts forward two crucial ideas: the need for a whole-of-the-government coordination and integration of inclusive growth actions, across multiple levels of government; and to inclusive policy-making, defined as the practice of identifying and incorporating citizens’ views and actual needs into the design, implementation and evaluation of policies. At the national level the chapter discusses inclusive policy-making, defined as the process, including with experimentation, by which governments enable the incorporation of citizens’ needs and views into the design, implementation and evaluation of policies which will help better target government programmes and increase their efficiency.
Inclusive policy making requires capacity from governments to deal with complexity in policy making, assess differentiated policy impacts from broader viewpoints while eliminating discrimination and behavioural bias, and identify complementarities and trade-offs between and within policies and policy objectives. It also requires that public policy-making is protected from undue influence, where a public decision is captured by a narrow interest group to reflect its own interest. Integrity, openness and accountability in decision-making ensure that the needs, preferences and concerns of stakeholders, including underserved populations are reflected in decision-making. These components are measured by a number of indicators, including trust in national government and satisfaction and confidence across public services. A set of best practices on inclusive growth governance in sectoral areas (e.g. innovation, skills and labour market institutions) is presented together with some governance practices that cut across several policy areas.
The Inclusive Growth Framework for Policy Action on Inclusive Growth consolidates some of the key policy recommendations to sustain and more equitably share the gains of economic growth from related OECD work, around broad principles to build efficient and responsive governments through:
(i) aligned policy packages across the government;
(ii) integration of distributional aspects upfront in the policy design; and
(iii) assessing policies for inclusiveness and growth impacts.