Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

This side-event will provide an opportunity for country representatives from the Southeast Asia region to: Share their challenges and priorities in the thematic areas of: water security, clean energy finance and investment mobilisation, sustainable infrastructure, and marine plastic pollution. and Learn about OECD activities that support green recovery in practice in the region, building on ongoing collaboration with countries on the above-mentioned thematic areas.

The roundtable will provide an opportunity for development providers from OECD countries, Southeast Asia and Regional Development Funds, the World Bank, and the UN Office of South-South Co-operation to exchange knowledge, ideas and experiences on how development co-operation can guide a sustainable COVID-19 Recovery.

This Ministerial Conference will both celebrate the achievements of the OECD Southeast Asia Regional Programme (SEARP) to date, as its ambitious second phase draws to a close, and look forward, identifying the digital, environmental and social challenges faced by the region due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background

This Working Paper presents a cross-directorate report on the economic, budgetary, regulatory and urban policy implications of the earthquakes which struck the Marmara and Bolu areas of Turkey on 17 August and 12 November 1999. The earthquakes caused high casualties and significant material damage to property, with severe effects on economic activity. The Report traces the factors underlying Turkey’s vulnerability to earthquake damage, along a known active fault line, to deficiencies in risk identification procedures and risk-reduction methods, as well as to the absence of risk transfer and financing techniques. It suggests that these deficiencies may stem from the nature of recent Turkish economic development, which has been driven by the need to assimilate a mass migration from the countryside to the cities and has been associated with extremely high and variable inflation.