OECD “Simplifying for Success” Symposium: Business Drives Regulatory Simplification Efforts

Business at OECD played a key role in supporting the OECD high-level Symposium on “Simplification for Success,” which provided a platform to explore current global regulatory burden reduction and simplification initiatives and define the path to tangible outcomes for business. A survey conducted by national member and observer organisations of Business at OECD found that regulatory reporting requirements and compliance were the top challenges identified by business organisations from 81% of countries, underscoring the critical relevance of regulatory simplification for Business at OECD members.

The Symposium convened global leaders across sectors from government, business, trade and consumer protection organisations to exchange on lessons learnt from past regulatory efforts, and how governments can more effectively reduce regulatory complexity and costs while maximising growth and safeguarding the public interest.  

Left to right: Our Policy Manager Emma Brierley, the OECD's Governance and Regulatory Policy Committee Chair Graham Russell, the OECD's Head of Regulatory Policy Anna Pietikainen, the OECD's Director of the Policy and Research Branch for Economics Asa Johansson, our Executive Board Member Minna Aila, the OECD's Director for Public Governance Elsa Pilichowski, and our Governance and Regulatory Policy Committee Chair Yılmaz Argüden, following our Working Lunch.

Bayer's Alessandra Salamini intervening at our Working Lunch.

Our Economic Policy Committee Vice-Chair and Diageo's Richard Grenfell-Hill intervening at our Working Lunch.

The OECD's Governance and Regulatory Policy Committee Chair Graham Russell provided closing remarks at our Working Lunch.

Far right: Our Executive Board Member Minna Aila joined a high-level panel on unlocking prosperity.

Business at OECD also hosted a working lunch during the Symposium, bringing together a diverse range of representatives from our business network, such as Bayer, Sanofi, Diageo, BAT, AB InBev, Holcim, CECIMO, WindEurope, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, Ibec, the U.S. Council for International Business, VNO-NCW, BusinessEurope and others. During the lunch, participants discussed the regulatory and administrative requirements which create the most significant burdens for business, as well as key learnings from simplification efforts which have helped reduce those burdens. 

Throughout the Symposium, Business at OECD members conveyed our top five priorities for the OECD to advance simplification efforts: We urge governments to (1) consider the full range of regulatory tools at their disposal and utilise non-regulatory approaches when they are more appropriate to achieve public policy goals, (2) engage more effectively with businesses to inform regulatory decisions, (3) commit to effective and efficient enforcement of regulation by ensuring proportionate compliance, (4) routinely evaluate the existing body of regulations, by systematically conducting ex-post evaluations of regulatory frameworks, and (5) increase co-operation among regulatory institutions at local, regional and international levels.  

A key takeaway from the event is that strong stakeholder engagement early in the regulatory design process is vital to building smarter, more effective and outcomes-based regulation. Business at OECD underscores the need for sustained business input in the OECD’s efforts on regulatory simplification and looks forward to contributing to the next phase of this work.