EURACTIV.com (29.03.2019) Since the start of the year, Austria has been working towards adapting family benefits to the costs of living of the employee’s home countries. The EU criticised the Vienna government of Vienna – but it has withstood.

Pakistan Today (28.03.2019) Imran says Rs80bn ‘Ehsas’ programme will ensure provision of food, shelter, education and health to citizens as fundamental right –Database containing income details of citizens to be launched by December

EURACTIV.com (29.03.2019) The German crowdfunding project “Mein Grundeinkommen” (my basic income) has already funded 300 people who have benefitted from a monthly income of €1,000 for a year and 13 Departments in France are eager to introduce such a financial subsidy.

El País (01.04.2019) Este lunes también entran en vigor la retribución de 588 euros por hijo para las familias en situación de pobreza y las bonificaciones a la contratación de parados de larga duración

thisdaylive. (01.04.2019) Thursday President Muhammadu Buhari launched the micro pension plan (MPP) which automatically extends retirement benefits to millions of self-employed workers in the informal sector.

Bangkok Post (25.03.2019)  Following the general election yesterday, elected politicians will be closely watched how and whether they will keep the many promises made during their poll campaigns. One is their pledge to make Thailand a “welfare state”.

Although health outcomes have improved in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the past several decades, a new reality is at hand. Changing health needs, growing public expectations, and ambitious new health goals are raising the bar for health systems to produce better health outcomes and greater social value. But staying on current trajectory will not suffice to meet these demands. What is needed are high-quality health systems that optimise health care in each given context by consistently delivering care that improves or maintains health, by being valued and trusted by all people, and by responding to changing population needs. Quality should not be the purview of the elite or an aspiration for some distant future; it should be the DNA of all health systems. Furthermore, the human right to health is meaningless without good quality care because health systems cannot improve health without it.

This document – Delivering quality health services: a global imperative for universal health coverage – describes the essential role of quality in the delivery of health care services. As nations commit to achieving universal health coverage by 2030, there is a growing acknowledgement that optimal health care cannot be delivered by simply ensuring coexistence of infrastructure, medical supplies and health care providers. Improvement in health care delivery requires a deliberate focus on quality of health services, which involves providing effective, safe, people-centred care that is timely, equitable, integrated and efficient.

deloitte (March 2019) This 2019 outlook reviews the current state of the global health care sector and explores trends and issues impacting health care providers, governments, payers, patients, and other stakeholders. It also outlines suggestions for them as they seek to redefine the health care ecosystem and looks at examples from the market.

opengovasia.com (08.02.2019) World Economic Forum report outlines how business, government and citizens can deliver responsible digital tranformation

“Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality and life expectancy, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017” is based on more data than ever before and includes 622 new data sources, for a total of 8,259 data sources. The 2017 study produced and used a new set of population estimates, which has led to substantial changes in mortality estimates in many countries. The analysis has been extended in time by two decades to start in 1950, and the statistical methods have been improved.

With atypical work gaining popularity, platform work seems to combine all the elements which, by deviating significantly from the standard employment relationship, challenge social security systems. After an overview of the features of the standard employment relationship and the different ways in which non-standard forms of work diverge from them, the article focuses on the nature of platform work. It then analyses how platform work is regulated in five European social security systems (i.e. Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Belgium), and how this regulation may fare when analysed under the lens of the recent European Commission’s proposal for a Council Recommendation on access to social protection for workers and the self-employed. The article concludes by highlighting the need for further adaptation of social security systems to the specific features of platform work, and by noting the risks of a regulatory approach towards this new form of work being dominated by the exclusion of low-paid work from the scope of labour-related social insurance schemes.

Le Point (28.03.2019) Dominique Libault, ancien directeur de la Sécurité sociale, présente ses propositions pour faire face au vieillissement annoncé de la population.

The evidence‐based policymaking relies on the use and robustness of the available data. Many conceptual and operational difficulties restrict this process, not least in making use of evidence to identify policy priorities. The Active Ageing Index (AAI), developed originally for the 28 European Union countries, offers a strong motivation in this respect. This paper reports on the development of the AAI for Korea, a country where speed and level of population aging is among the highest in the world. Drawing on the comparative analysis of the AAI results for Korea, China, and European countries, we find that Korea's AAI (35.3) is higher than the average of the AAI for all EU countries (33.9) but lower than China (37.3). Fitting Korea into the overall ranking with the EU countries and China (ranked 7), Korea is ranked 11, just behind Germany (10). The AAI results in Korea show that the employment domain performs extremely well compared with the EU countries, but other domains, especially “Social participation” and “Independent, healthy and secure living,” are achieving less favorable outcomes. High employment among the current cohorts of older workers in Korea can be attributed largely to the constraints of low pension income status.

Les Echos (28.03.2018) Part de l'assurance privée, rôle des collectivités locales, reste à charge des familles : chaque pays en Europe fait face à sa façon à la perte d'autonomie des personnes âgées.

lemonde.fr (04.10.2018) Dans un pays à la population vieillissante comme la France, la perte d’autonomie des personnes âgées devient une équation de plus en plus complexe – et chère – à résoudre.

larepublica.pe (26.03.2019) Brecha salarial. En un puesto de trabajo formal el salario promedio de una mujer asciende a S/ 2.032; mientras que en el sector informal gana S/ 715 al mes.

Europa (26.03.2019) The spring edition of the Commission's Employment and Social Developments in Europe (ESDE) Quarterly Review shows that the number of people in employment and the number of hours worked continues to rise.

Arte (20.03.2019) Bien sûr, le Brexit reste le feuilleton dramatique du moment. Mais l’Union européenne avance aussi pour renforcer les droits aux aides sociales des personnes qui travaillent et vivent dans un autre pays européen que le leur. Dans ce journal, nous irons aussi en Italie, où Matteo Salvini devrait échapper à la justice et nous partirons en Hongrie où Viktor Orban se prépare à sa possible exclusion du Parti populaire européen. Enfin, pourquoi ne pas revenir sur notre vision de l’Union européenne, qui fait l’objet de sondages aux résultats parfois étonnants ?

When globalisation meshes with robotics, the losers will be the middle classes.

El País (26.03.2019) El Gobierno ha aprobado este viernes la primera estrategia nacional contra la pobreza y la exclusión social en España. El documento abarca el periodo entre los años 2019 y 2023 y esboza la ruta a seguir para combatir la desigualdad en todos sus frentes, desde su manifestación en la infancia hasta la vulnerabilidad energética. En el texto se proponen 85 líneas de actuación como desarrollar un sistema de ingresos mínimos para los hogares, impulsar la universalización de la educación de cero a tres años en familias vulnerables o fomentar el bono social y el bono eléctrico.

European Parliament (19.03.2019) New rules aim to ensure access to social security for EU workers who have moved to a different EU country, while fairly distributing obligations among member states. Updated rules for unemployment, family and long-term care benefits. Better cooperation between member states to ensure access to benefits and root out fraud or errors

Manila Bulletin News (25.03.2019) Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III welcomed the signing into law of the Occupational Safety and Health Standards (OSHS) bill, which he said is expected to minimize work-related deaths and accidents.

RFI (19.03.2019) Alors que la justice fiscale est l'une des revendications principales des « gilets jaunes » en France, l'enquête de l'Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques (OCDE) publiée mardi 19 mars indique qu'une large majorité de ressortissants des pays développés pense que les riches devraient payer plus pour la protection sociale.