The volumes on “Social Protection Floors” present best practices and experiences from countries that are useful for South-South learning, for practitioners and to provide the basis for more informed policy-making.

From 1981 to 2014, thirty countries privatized fully or partially their public mandatory pensions; as of 2018, eighteen countries have reversed the privatization.

Annual review 2018 

This issue of Policy in Focus gathers articles from leading scholars, researchers and practitioners to discuss these challenges from different perspectives. They examine the current state of non-contributory social protection in the MENA region as a whole and in specific countries and explore how these countries have been coping with and learning from the recent economic and humanitarian crises.

ILO (31.10.2018) From 1981 to 2014, thirty countries privatized fully or partially their public mandatory pensions; as of 2018, eighteen countries have reversed the privatization. This report: (i) analyses the failure of mandatory private pensions to improve old-age income security and their underperformance in terms of coverage, benefits, administrative costs, transition costs, social and fiscal impacts, and others; (ii) documents the reversals of pension privatization, the laws, governance, new entitlements, financing and contribution rates of the new public pension systems; (iii) provides guidance on the key policy steps to reverse pension privatization, for those countries considering returning back to a public system.

Gesundheitsstadt Berlin (29.10.2018) Viel Hochleistungsmedizin, wenig Vorsorge: Dieses gemischte Zeugnis stellt die EU-Kommission de deutschen Gesundheitssystem aus. Bei den Ausgaben steht Deutschland indes an der Spitze

ILO (05.11.2018) Organized with ILO assistance, the first annual conference following up on the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans examined opportunities of a knowledge-based economy in Serbia.

Harbour Times (01.11.2018) New and repeat parents in Hong Kong are now entitled to longer parental leave, thanks to the latest Policy Address and LegCo decisions. But economic concerns might get in the way of future extensions.  Mrs Carrie Lam, Chief Executive, announced the extension of maternity leave from the current 10 weeks to 14 in her Policy Address on October 10. Both the public and private sectors have quickly followed suit.

socialeurope (01.11.2018) Italy’s draft 2019 September Budget Law, which will enter into force in January 2019, has been defined as a “courageous manoeuvre” for change by the political forces which have designed and implemented it very recently. Indeed, it may indeed take much courage to introduce a measure of basic income (the so-called ‘reddito di cittadinanza’) which is conditional upon undertaking ‘unpaid work’ in community-based services. The reform states that to get the subsidy, the ‘poor’ will have to work eight hours a week for ‘free’ (unpaid) ‘for the state’ and accept a job proposal out of three, perhaps in three years (and not more than 18 or 24 months as previously thought) under threat of expulsion from the system.

La Razón (01.11.2018) E l 7 de octubre se celebra el Día Internacional del Trabajo Decente, fecha que es aprovechada para evaluar los esfuerzos de los actores laborales (trabajadores, Estado y empleadores) destinados a materializar los objetivos que impulsan dicha conmemoración.

Eurofound (24.09.2018) Platform work is a form of employment that uses an online platform to match the supply of and demand for paid labour. In Europe, platform work is still small in scale but is rapidly developing. The types of work offered through platforms are ever-increasing, as are the challenges for existing regulatory frameworks. This report explores the working and employment conditions of three of the most common types of platform work in Europe. For each of these types, Eurofound assesses the physical and social environment, autonomy, employment status and access to social protection, and earnings and taxation based on interviews with platform workers. A comparative analysis of the regulatory frameworks applying to platform work in 18 EU Member States accompanies this review. This looks into workers’ employment status, the formal relationships between clients, workers and platforms, and the organisation and representation of workers and platforms.

biometricupdate.com (05.10.2018) The World Bank has announced the launch of the Mission Billion annual innovation challenge to address the most critical issues in digital identification as it works toward achieving sustainable development goal 16.9 to establish legal identity for all.

ILO (31.10.2018) The 11th ASEAN Forum on Migrant Labour held in Singapore on 29-30 October discussed how to maximize the potential of digitalization to promote decent work for migrant workers in the Asia Pacific region. Anna Engblom, senior expert on labour migration at the International Labour Organization (ILO), reviews the opportunities and challenges brought by digitalization in this area.

Conclusions of the Prime Minister of Estonia Jüri Ratas after the Tallinn Digital Summit

INSIGHTS 06/10/2017 12:29 #eu2017ee #TallinnDigitalSummit

Prime Minister of Estonia Jüri Ratas has published conclusions from the Tallinn Digital Summit, which are going to be discussed by the European Union leaders at the next European Council taking place on 19-20 October in Brussels.

brinknews.com (31.10.2018) 

EurActiv (31.10.2018) À partir de janvier 2019, l’Autriche indexera les allocations familiales au niveau de vie des pays dans lesquels vivent les enfants concernés. La Commission veut maintenant se saisir de la question.

The United Nations welcomes you to our interactive e-Government Knowledgebase (UNeGovKB). The Database was created by the Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government (DPIDG) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) to provide governments and all members of civil society easy access to this valuable information for research, education and planning purposes. We invite you to use the interactive UNeGovKB to view, sort, and print information from the UN E-Government Survey, or download copies of the annual (2004, 2005, 2008, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018) United Nations E-Government Survey. The United Nations E-Government Survey presents a systematic assessment of the use and potential of information and communication technologies to transform the public sector by enhancing efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, accountability, access to public services and citizen participation in the 193 Member States of the United Nations, and at all levels of development.

Bloomberg (30.10.2018)  Just months after Uber Technologies Inc. persuaded a London judge to allow it to keep operating in the city, the ride-hailing company is back in court. At stake during two days of hearings at the Court of Appeal in London is an issue that could strike at the core of the U.K.’s burgeoning gig economy: whether Uber’s drivers are really self-employed

FOCUS Online (21.10.2018) Die Altersrenten in Deutschland sind in den zehn Jahren zwischen 2007 und 2017 um 22 Prozent gestiegen. Lagen sie 2007 im Durchschnitt bei 718 Euro im Monat, erhöhte sich die Durchschnittsrente bis 2017 auf 875,68 Euro, wie aus aktuellen Daten der Deutsche Rentenversicherung hervorgeht. Sie liegen der Düsseldorfer „Rheinischen Post“ vor.

 VOX, CEPR Policy Portal (03.10.2018) Many European countries are revisiting how best to finance long-term care, balancing financial sustainability and the economic welfare of households. Using examples of Spain and Scotland, this paper demonstrates that an expansion of public funding for long-term care has an effect on caregiving choices, household finances, and hospital care. Unconditional or cash subsidies may entail a ‘caregiving moral hazard’, but both cash and care subsidies can bring savings to the health system by reducing the frequency and intensity of hospitalisation. 

L'Economiste (29/10/2018) En dépit des progrès dans la mise en œuvre des programmes, l’efficacité et l’efficience du système de protection sociale restent limitées. C’est l’une des principales conclusions du rapport de l’Unicef sur le «Mapping de la protection sociale au Maroc».

Malijet (31.10.2018) Les travaux de la 4ème édition de la conférence nationale sur la protection sociale se sont ouverts à l’hôtel de l’Amitié de Bamako, le mardi 30 octobre 2018 sous le thème « opérationnalisation et financement du socle de protection sociale au Mali ». Deux jours durant, les participants à ces travaux vont non seulement exposer des produits mais aussi aborderont  une pluralité de thèmes dont le fil conducteur va certainement être la définition et l’opérationnalisation d’un socle de protection sociale pour le Mali.

Accelerating the digital transformation of governments in the EU — 2016-2020 action plan  

WHAT IS THE AIM OF THE COMMUNICATION, THE TREATY ARTICLES AND THE CHARTER? Since 2005, the European Commission has adopted EU eGovernment action plans in order to advance the agenda of public sector modernisation across the EU. They aim to support European coordination, collaboration and joint actions on eGovernment. The latest action plan aims to provide support to administrative processes, improving service quality and increasing efficiency by making full use of digital technology. It also aims to reduce administrative burden on businesses and citizens by making interactions faster, more convenient and cheaper, leading to further economic and social benefits for society as a whole. Under Article 197 TFEU, the EU may support the efforts of EU countries to improve their administrative capacity to implement EU law. Under Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, every person has the right to: have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by EU bodies, including the right to be heard before any individual measure which would affect him or her adversely is taken, have access to his or her file, while respecting the legitimate interests of confidentiality and of professional and business secrecy.

KEY POINTS The action plan is guided by the vision that by 2020, public administrations and institutions in the EU should be open, efficient and inclusive, providing borderless, personalised, user-friendly, digital public services to all citizens and businesses. Innovative approaches are used to design and deliver better services in line with the needs and demands of citizens and businesses. Public administrations use the opportunities offered by the new digital environment to facilitate their interactions with all interested parties and with each other. This action plan aims to join up the efforts being made to remove existing digital barriers to the Digital Single Market. It does not have a dedicated budget, but helps to coordinate resources available to EU countries through various EU programmes. Initiatives within the plan are based on these principles:

• Digital by default, delivering services digitally as the preferred option through a single contact point;
• Once-only principle, ensuring that citizens and businesses supply the same information only once to a public administration;
• Inclusive and accessible: digital public services that are inclusive and cater for different needs such as those of people with disabilities;
• Open and transparent: public bodies sharing information and data between themselves, and citizens and businesses having access to their own data, engaging with businesses and others in service design;
• Cross-border, with digital public services available across borders, preventing further fragmentation and assuring mobility within the EU’s single market;
• Interoperable, with services designed to work seamlessly across the single market and across organisations;
• Trustworthy and secure, with initiatives going further than just legal compliance on data protection, privacy, and IT security.

The Regulation (EU) N°910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (eIDAS Regulation) adopted by the co-legislators on 23 July 2014 is a milestone to provide a predictable regulatory environment to enable secure and seamless electronic interactions between businesses, citizens and public authorities.

Electronic identification (eID) and electronic Trust Services (eTS) are key enablers for secure cross-border electronic transactions and central building blocks of the Digital Single Market.

The eIDAS Regulation:

• ensures that people and businesses can use their own national electronic identification schemes (eIDs) to access public services in other EU eID are available.
• creates an European internal market for eTS - namely electronic signatures, electronic seals, time stamp, electronic delivery service and website authentication - by ensuring that they will work across borders and have the same legal status as traditional paper based processes. Only by providing certainty on the legal validity of all these services, businesses and citizens will use the digital interactions as their natural way of interaction.

ippmedia.com (29.10.2018) The Public Service Social Security Fund (PSSSF) and National Social Security Fund (NSSF) are in the final stages of setting up operational guidelines for issuance of unemployment benefits to members, the sector regulator announced yesterday.