icrw.org (2021) Uganda has a female labor force participation of 67 percent. While some efforts to advance social protection are being made, Uganda currently spends only about 3.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) towards that end. Meanwhile, the National Employment Policy (2010) covers social security only for workers in the formal sector, leaving informal workers unsupported. Intentional targeting and expansion of the social protection program to informal women workers is an economic investment that would shield informal businesses and households from the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic shocks and closures.

 European Commission (22.12.2021) The European Platform for Investing in Children (EPIC) has published a new report exploring how EU Member States supported working families throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

Willis Towers Watson (23.12.2021) Chinese regions extend maternity leave to address declining birth rates and an aging population, bringing implications for employers.

ilo.org (07.12.2021) This regional report documents and analyses country experiences and lessons on the extension of social health protection coverage in the Asia and the Pacific region. It provides a detailed account of progress made, challenges encountered and remaining coverage gaps, and explores their root causes.

The OECD Forum Network (13.12.2021) How can workers in the gig economy be better protected against severe shocks and adverse working conditions?

ILO Working paper 42 (10.12.2021) This paper explores whether there has been a change in International Monetary Fund (IMF) policy advice and conditions in its loan programmes and Article IV surveillance by examining the 148 country reports for IMF programmes in 2020, in the context of significant shifts in its global macroeconomic policy framework during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 thenews.com.pk (19.12.2021) Misclassification deprives platform workers of the right to minimum wage

 - Pension Policy International (20.12.2021) Leftist lawmaker Gabriel Boric, 35, on Sunday became Chile’s youngest-ever president on promises of installing a “welfare state” in one of the world’s most unequal countries.

The OECD Forum Network (13.12.2021) How can workers in the gig economy be better protected against severe shocks and adverse working conditions?

ilo.org (29.11.2021) COVID-19 pandemic that caused massive unemployment has forced countries to review their employment policy and protection system. This paper summarized efforts taken by Republic of Korea in reforming their employment protection system during the pandemic.

ilo.org (07.12.2021) This regional report documents and analyses country experiences and lessons on the extension of social health protection coverage in the Asia and the Pacific region. It provides a detailed account of progress made, challenges encountered and remaining coverage gaps, and explores their root causes.

EURACTIV.com (09.12.2021) The EU will propose a set of criteria on Thursday (9 December) to determine whether a gig worker in Europe using platforms like Uber, Bolt or Deliveroo should be considered an employee. The proposal by the EU executive is an effort to sort out once and for all the employment status of millions of drivers and delivery people that the major platforms insist are self-employed. The debate has clogged up courts across Europe for almost a decade, with judges handing out more than a hundred decisions across the bloc’s 27 member states, with hundreds more still pending. Those decisions can vary markedly, with Belgium on Wednesday denying a small group of Deliveroo workers the designation of employees, while Uber lost in court in non-EU Britain over its service in London.

Jamaica Information Service (06.12.2021) For the first time, Jamaica’s household helpers and fisherfolk will be able to secure pension benefits under the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) as the Government moves to formalise these sectors. This will be facilitated under the Transition to Formality Action Plan, which will see this segment of workers being able to access health and life insurance, pension and other facilities to provide them with security and protection in their work environment. The Action Plan, which was officially launched by Minister of Labour and Social Security, Hon. Karl Samuda, during a virtual ceremony on Tuesday (November 30), is in keeping with the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) recommendation to Member States to standardise informal sectors.

International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG)  -  (08.12.2021) This Policy Research Brief presents the reforms under way in the social protection systems of Tunisia and Morocco in light of the COVID-19 crisis. Although both countries have demonstrated political will and commitment to address coverage gaps, they still need to develop a proper legal framework and fiscal space to implement social protection floors in the coming years. The pandemic has affected reforms differently in the two countries: in a more ‘positive’ way in Morocco, while contributing to stalling changes in Tunisia.

Willis Towers Watson (30.12.2021) Legislation establishing the creation of a universal health system (l'assurance maladie universelle – AMU) has been approved by the national assembly. This follows the approval of a new Labor Code in June 2021 (to be effective 12 months after being signed into law), which includes the general right to health insurance coverage for all workers. The government aims to complete the rollout of AMU by 2025, although a detailed plan has yet to be released. Like much of sub-Saharan Africa, government spending on healthcare in Togo is relatively low (about 1.4% of GDP) with out-of-pocket spending representing about two-thirds of all expenditures

ilo.org (25.11.2021) This report is produced for the G20 Development Working Group by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the World Bank. It demonstrates the key role that social protection has played in countries at all income levels in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

pd.co.ke (24.11.2021) It will be a major score for expectant and lactating mothers working in the informal sector if the government adopts a newlyproposed maternity scheme. The Maternal Income Protection Benefits (MIPB) joins Linda Mama that was initiated by the National Hospital Insurance Fund, which has seen more than one million expectant mothers register for the scheme since inception in 2017. According to NHIF, which has come up with the latest scheme, MIPB is aimed at cushioning mothers in the informal sector from anxieties associated with poverty.

euronews.com  (05.05.2021) In this episode of Real Economy we ask what happens when job retention schemes come to an end in Europe? Job retention schemes have kept millions of people in work during the pandemic and lockdowns. As these emergency measures are gradually phased out, how does Europe ensure there are enough jobs and that people have the right skills for the jobs of the future?

worldbank.org (16.11.2021) While health indicators and macroeconomic data are essential for addressing the fundamentals of the COVID-19 crisis, countervailing policies need detailed information on the mechanisms through which the pandemic affects human capital, livelihoods, and welfare. This is especially important in Nigeria because the pandemic threatens to compound the country’s high levels of poverty: even before COVID-19, around 4 in 10 Nigerians lived below the national poverty line, and multidimensional poverty was even more widespread. In Nigeria, this kind of detailed analysis is made possible by high-frequency data collected during the pandemic through the Nigeria COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (NLPS). This nationally-representative survey is distinctive in capturing key socioeconomic information from households for 12 consecutive rounds between April 2020 and April 2021: few other developing countries with which the World Bank has worked on phone surveys have such extensive data. A new report – COVID-19 in Nigeria: Frontline Data and Pathways for Policy – uses the NLPS to examine how the COVID-19 crisis has been affecting the human capital, livelihoods, and welfare of Nigerian households.

The third global survey on eHealth conducted by the WHO Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) has a special focus – the use of eHealth in support of universal health coverage. eHealth plays a vital role in promoting universal health coverage in a variety of ways. For instance, it helps provide services to remote populations and underserved communities through telehealth or mHealth. It facilitates the training of the health workforce through the use of eLearning, and makes education more widely accessible especially for those who are isolated. It enhances diagnosis and treatment by providing accurate and timely patient information through electronic health records. And through the strategic use of ICT, it improves the operations and financial efficiency of health care systems. This Atlas presents data collected on 125 WHO Member States. The survey was undertaken by the WHO Global Observatory for eHealth between April and August 2015 and represents the most current information on the use of eHealth in these countries.

The aim of the third global survey on eHealth was to explore developments in eHealth since the last survey in 2010 and the role it plays in achieving universal health coverage (UHC). It has become increasingly clear that UHC cannot be achieved without the support of eHealth. The impetus for the global surveys on eHealth came from the increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in support of health services in both developed and developing countries since the early 2000s. This was acknowledged by the World Health Assembly in resolution WHA58.28 (2005): “eHealth is the cost-effective and secure use of ICT in support of health and health-related fields, including health-care services, health surveillance, health literature, and health education, knowledge and research.” Managed by the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe), the most recent survey had the highest response rate by WHO Member States (125) to date, which reflects growing interest by countries in this issue and eHealth’s increasingly ubiquitous role in health care.

This publication presents a study on the availability and provision of long-term care (LTC) in Indonesia. It discusses findings from the analysis and offers recommendations for the development of LTC systems in the country.

etui (2021) The Covid‑19 pandemic severely affected some categories of non-standard workers, and particularly the self‑employed. The emergency measures cushioned the potentially disastrous effect on their social circumstances, but undeniably highlighted even more the gaps in their access and entitlement to social protection benefits While the first report of this joint project of the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) and the European Social Observatory (OSE) mapped the measures taken in relation to unemployment benefits, sickness benefits and leave for non-standard workers and the self‑employed (Spasova et al. 2021), this edited volume comprises eight country case studies: Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania and Sweden.

euractiv (19.11.2021) The European Commission, which is due to present its proposal on platform workers on 8 December, faces a tricky balancing act: ensuring decent working conditions while maintaining the flexibility of a booming sector.

unescap.org (07.10.2021) This is the sixth in a series of policy primers developed to support policymakers and practitioners in Asia and the Pacific in their efforts to strengthen social protection. This policy primer explains how social protection systems can be designed to recognize and compensate for interruptions in paid work, low earnings and informality that disproportionately impact women.