In recent years, multiple, consecutive crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, have threatened economic resilience and wellbeing worldwide.  

Governments in OECD countries - and democratic systems -  have generally responded at scale and speed. However, in the face of major environmental, demographic, fiscal, and technological challenges, countries now need to step up efforts to strengthen trust and secure democratic resilience. 

Key findings:

• Multiple crises can further undermine trust in public institutions
  
• Public participation can be made more active and effective
  
• Women are still under-represented in politics and public institutions
  
• Governments can do more to fight the climate crisis
  
• Public integrity standards need to be better implemented in practice 
  

In 2021, people’s trust in their national governments was evenly split, between those who trust their national government and those who do not. Trust levels towards the end of the COVID-19 epidemic were only slightly higher than after the 2008 financial crisis. Moreover, there are significant variations across countries and groups. Young people, those with low levels of education, and those living on low incomes, report lower levels of trust in government than other groups. Trust in government is also noticeably lower for people feeling a sense of financial insecurity or a lack of political voice. In a poly-crises environment, efforts will need to be made to build trust. 

Processes of participation and representation are at the heart of democracy. With more empowered and demanding citizens, it will be key to adopt innovative participation and representation mechanisms beyond traditional ones.  This will also support governments’ agility when managing crisis.  

Equal representation of women and men in the public sector is a key indicator of progress towards gender equality and diversity. Women make up a larger share of public sector employment (58.9%) but more can be done to ensure that they are equally represented at senior levels.

Many of the processes which governments use to make decisions can help fight the climate crisis. An example is green budgeting, which refers to integrating climate and environmental considerations into decisions on taxes and public spending. It could be used more effectively by further involving civil society and parliaments in monitoring and ensuring oversight.

There are standards regulating lobbying, political finance and conflict of interests, yet these are not always applied.  In the case of lobbying in OECD countries, on average only 38% of standard regulatory safeguards are in place, and 33% of standards are implemented in practice.