Foreword

Environmental protection and green growth have become increasingly important in the work of the OECD Development Centre. In 2015, its report Securing Livelihoods for All: Foresight for Action warned that environmental challenges were among the most pressing threats to the global progress achieved in improving livelihoods. Since then, the Development Centre has increased its effort to support strategies for greener and more inclusive growth with core advice in country-specific, regional and thematic work. Its reports, the Latin American Economic Outlook, Africa’s Development Dynamics, the Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India and the Multi-dimensional Reviews, notably include more systematic reviews of environmental and climate change issues.

As more countries in Southeast Asia embark on the green transition and look for ways of making the necessary environmental reforms politically acceptable, understanding the redistributive effects of green growth and putting in place policies to protect and reallocate affected workers will be key. This report adds two important perspectives on the linkages between environmental, economic and social concerns in Southeast Asia. First, it assesses the share and types of jobs exposed to environmental degradation, depicting the characteristics of workers likely to win or lose from a transition towards renewable energy in Indonesia. Second, it underscores the effects on jobs and income of adopting more sustainable farming practices, illustrated by the expansion of organic rice cultivation.

This report was produced in the context of the Development Centre’s Programme of Work's component on Inclusive Growth and Decent Jobs for Youth, with the financial contribution of the Government of Korea. The study supports the priority actions of the “New Deal for Development”, agreed at the High-Level Meeting of the Governing Board of the Development Centre in October 2020. It also contributes to the OECD Southeast Asia Regional Programme’s support to the ASEAN Comprehensive Recovery Framework (ACRF) adopted at the 37th ASEAN Summit in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The ACRF lays out ASEAN’s vision, strategy and action plan for the COVID-19 recovery, towards a more sustainable and resilient future.