cabri-sbo.org (25.03.2020)

To promote the use of electronic payment tools the Western Africa Central Bank (BCEAO) is providing more flexible measures to open a mobile money and making transfers between people backed by electronic money free.

unicef.org (16.10.2020)

The Government of Tajikistan is working with the World Bank to provide support to low-income families in Tajikistan through the Tajikistan Emergency COVID-19 (TEC-19) Project. Up to 50,000 families with children under the age of 3, who are registered as poor in the national program of the Targeted Social Assistance (TSA), will receive one-off payments of 500 TJS (around US$50) in order to offset the impacts of the pandemic. 20,000 families have already received this vital support, which is helping them cover essential needs such as food and medication.

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (28.10.2020) Employers, who introduced a paid-leave programme for female pregnant employees who are recommended by a doctor to take leaves due to stress caused by Covid-19, can apply a subsidy. Eligible employers are who informed employees of the programme and allowed a employee more than five days paid-leave inclusive between 7 May 2020 and 31 January 2021. The amount of subsidy is 250,000 yen per employee who took 5 - 19 days of paid-leave, and 150,000 yen is added for every 20 days thereafter (up to 1,000,000 yen per employee, 20 employee per company). Application for the subsidy is available from 15 June 2020 to 1 March 2021.  

BMAS (09.09.2020) The regulation was extended today until December 31, 2020 that people with disabilities can still have the additional need to finance lunch. This is important because lunch often cannot be taken in workshops for disabled people and comparable day-structuring measures due to the pandemic.

BMAS (09.09.2020) The federal government has approved the Social protection package I Simplified access to basic social security benefits. Due to the ongoing economic effects of the pandemic, the Federal Cabinet has now extended this relief until December 31, 2020. They include the temporary restriction of the asset assessment, the temporary recognition of the actual costs for accommodation and heating as well as simplifications in the approval of provisional benefits.

The government of the Republic of Serbia (02.10.2020) The Office for Information Technologies and e-Administration announced that as of today, on the eGovernment portal, electronic scheduling of appointments for PCR testing on personal request has been enabled. Citizens, foreign citizens with an approved residence in our country, as well as foreign citizens without an approved residence (tourists), can easily and quickly schedule an appointment in one of the 25 laboratories in 22 cities and municipalities in Serbia.

Government of the Czech Republic (26.10.2020) The government approved an extension of the Antivirus B aid programme through to the end of the year, i.e. until 31 December 2020. Antivirus B can be drawn on by companies that have had to put their employees on "obstacle at work" leave. The contribution will continue to be provided to employers in the amount of 60% of paid wage compensations, a maximum of CZK 29,000 monthly per employee. Mode B thus remains exactly the same as before. 

Ministry of Labor, Pensions, Families and Social Policy (30.07.2020) Eligible employers are sheltered workshops, integrative workshops and work units for the employment of persons with disabilities, regardless of the sector in which they operate, and the duration of the measure is from 1 July to 31 December 2020. The support is awarded in the amount of HRK 4,000.00 per month per full-time employee, ie a proportional part per employee according to the number of part-time hours and HRK 250 contribution for pension insurance based on individual capitalized savings, ie the amount of additional contribution obligation for pension insurance based on individual capitalized savings for insurance period with increased duration.

The Government Accountability Office has found that most organizations voluntarily agreed to adopt the National Institute of Standards and Technology's cybersecurity framework but their overseeing agencies are yet to develop ways to ensure NIST compliance. GAO said in its report published Tuesday that it studied 12 organizations that reported voluntary compliance with NIST’s Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity. The watchdog noted that five of the nine agencies with oversight of 16 critical infrastructure sectors are yet to establish methods for determining organizations’ adoption of the cybersecurity framework.  According to GAO, the 12 organizations reported progress such as risk identification and standardized guidelines upon implementation of the NIST framework.  The overseeing entities, known as sector-specific agencies, reported that they were unable to provide information on the improvements due to the framework’s voluntary nature as well as a lack of metrics and a centralized information-sharing procedure. GAO said that until the SSAs establish a method for reporting sector-wide improvements, the “extent to which the 16 critical infrastructure sectors are better protecting their critical infrastructures from threats will be largely unknown.”

latinamerica.undp.org (14.10.2020) The Government of Honduras launched “Single Voucher” (Bono Unico), an innovative social protection program aimed at supporting the most vulnerable population affected by COVID-19 in Honduras. The Single Voucher is a one-time subsidy of $82 dollars (2,000 lempiras) delivered through an electronic voucher that can be exchanged for food, medicine and /or medical supplies to up to 260,000 persons in the country in the next three months. 

moroccoworldnews.com (20.10.2020) Morocco established several innovative digital solutions to increase the number of beneficiaries of social protection schemes during the pandemic.

This publication describes a voluntary risk management framework ("the Framework") that consists of standards, guidelines, and best practices to manage cybersecurity-related risk. The Framework's prioritized, flexible, and cost-effective approach helps to promote the protection and resilience of critical infrastructure and other sectors important to the economy and national security. This release, Version 1.1, includes a number of updates from the original Version 1.0 (from February 2014), including: a new section on self-assessment; expanded explanation of using the Framework for cyber supply chain risk management purposes; refinements to better account for authentication, authorization, and identity proofing; explanation of the relationship between implementation tiers and profiles; and consideration of coordinated vulnerability disclosure. Complete information about the Framework is available at https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework.

National Provident Fund (30.06.2020) The implementation of the Solomon Islands National Provident Fund Exemption Order expired on 30 June 2020. As from 1st July 2020 no new applications will be accepted. Implemented since 1st April 2020, eligible members who qualified under the exemption order were able to access part of their contributions during the period; 1) as a result of them being temporary laid off, 2) made redundancies during the period, 3) are unemployed and living in the declared emergency zone, 4) and those above 50 years who would want to draw part of their contributions. At the beginning of the week, 19,668 members had applied for a total amount of $94.6M. 18,910 members had collected their payments either through cash or cheques or through their bank accounts worth more than $91.1M. 341 members are yet to collect their payments worth more than $1.3M.

This volume describes the health care and long-term care systems of all EU Member States on a country basis and presents the related policy challenges.