This guide provides a framework to strengthen the role of development co-operation for mobilising foreign direct investment (FDI) and enhancing its positive impact in developing countries. The guide reviews a broad range of financial and technical solutions for enhancing the impact of FDI on sustainable development, and outlines ways donors can consider the impact of FDI on their strategies, thus supporting the design, implementation and monitoring of FDI-related assistance

This guide provides a framework to strengthen the role of development co-operation for mobilising foreign direct investment (FDI) and enhancing its positive impact in developing countries. The guide reviews a broad range of financial and technical solutions for enhancing the impact of FDI on sustainable development, and outlines ways donors can consider the impact of FDI on their strategies, thus supporting the design, implementation and monitoring of FDI-related assistance.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important source of finance for governments looking to meet global commitments on sustainable development. But, beyond the quantity of FDI, its quality also matters. The FDI Qualities Policy Toolkit complements the OECD Policy Framework for Investment by providing more detailed and tailored guidance on priorities for policy and institutional reforms that can enhance the impacts of investment in four areas of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): productivity and innovation, job quality and skills, gender equality, and decarbonisation.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important source of finance for governments looking to meet global commitments on sustainable development. The FDI Qualities Policy Toolkit complements the OECD Policy Framework for Investment by providing more detailed and tailored guidance on priorities for policy and institutional reforms.

OECD countries continue to face persistent gender inequalities in social and economic life. Young women often reach higher levels of education than young men, but remain under-represented in fields with the most lucrative careers.

This open access book studies how foreign models of economic development can be effectively learned by and applied to today’s latecomer countries. Policy capacity and societal learning are increasingly stressed as pre-conditions for successful catch-up. However, how such learning should be initiated by individual societies with different features needs to be explained. The book answers this pragmatic question from the perspective of Japan’s past experience and its extensive development cooperation in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Since the late nineteenth century, Japan has developed a unique philosophy and method for adopting advanced technologies and systems from the West; the same philosophy and method govern its current cooperation with the developing world. The key concepts are local learning and translative adaptation. Local learning says that development requires the learner to adopt a proactive mindset and the goal of graduating from receiving aid. Meanwhile, translative adaptation requires foreign models be modified to fit local realities given the different structures of the home and foreign society. The development process must be wholly owned by the domestic society in rejection of copy-and-paste acceptance. These ideas not only informed Japan but are key to successful development for all. The book also asks how this learning method should—or should not—be revised in the age of SDGs and digitalization. Following the overview section that lays out the general principles, the book offers many real cases from Japan and other countries. The concrete actions outlined in these cases, with close attention to individual growth “ingredients” as opposed to general theories, are crucial to successful policy making. The book contains materials that are highly useful for national leaders and practitioners within developing countries as well as students of development studies.

In the last three years, multiple global crises and the growing urgency of containing climate change have put current models of development co-operation to, perhaps, their most radical test in decades. The goal of a better world for all seems harder to reach, with new budgetary pressures, demands to provide regional and global public goods, elevated humanitarian needs, and increasingly complex political settings.