worldbank.org (01.03.2025) This policy note consolidates the highlights of a study funded by the Sahel Adaptive Social Protection Program (SASPP), exploring the role and operationalization of dynamic social registries in low-income and shock-prone contexts, including in the Sahel.

worldbank.org (24.03.2025) The World Bank estimates that closing the gender gap in employment would increase long-run gross domestic product (GDP) per capita by 20 percent (Pennings 2022). Realizing this achievement, however, depends not only on removing gender barriers to employment but also and most emphatically on improving the quality of women’s employment. Women’s labor force participation has been stagnant since 1990, at around 53 percent for women compared to 80 percent for men, with the largest gaps in lower-middle-income countries (World Bank 2023).

oecd.org (20.03.2025) Public employment services and active labour market policies (ALMPs) have an important role to play in providing adaptable and responsive support to connect people with jobs. This policy report synthesises findings from a joint OECD-EC project on using linked administrative data to evaluate the impact of ALMPs. The report brings insights across a range of dimensions. It shows the power that evaluation brings to policymaking to design effective and efficient ALMPs. It demonstrates the necessity for high-quality and rich data, linked across registers.

worldbank.org (31.01.2025) Advances in technology have the potential to enhance social protection services delivery but come with risks, such as data privacy concerns, exclusion, and biases. To use digital technologies effectively, strong frameworks, infrastructure, and capacity are essential. Without these, technology may inadvertently harm rather than benefit the intended populations. Technology can improve access, outreach, training, monitoring, and secure payments, among others, but risks must be managed by clearly defining roles and responsibilities among stakeholders.

ilo.org (03.02.2025) At the global level, mutuals primarily focus on providing complementary or supplementary coverage to basic health schemes. Only a small number of countries incorporate mutuals and community-based health insurance (CBHI) into the architecture of their basic health coverage systems. This working paper explores various country experiences where mutuals and CBHI contribute to basic health coverage within national social protection systems.

The Lancet Public Health (23.03.2025) Artificial intelligence (AI) can rapidly analyse large and complex datasets, extract tailored recommendations, support decision making, and improve the efficiency of many tasks that involve the processing of data, text, or images. As such, AI has the potential to revolutionise public health practice and research, but accompanying challenges need to be addressed. AI can be used to support public health surveillance, epidemiological research, communication, the allocation of resources, and other forms of decision making.

mckinsey.com (15.01.2025) Exploring the implications of a new demographic reality brought on by falling fertility and increasing longevity.

who.int (04.02.2027) The year 2024 saw the Mental Health Flagship, under the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems at the WHO Regional Office for Europe, make inroads in more sustainable and accessible mental health systems through four key areas: policy, services, data collection and stigma reduction. It marked the third year of the pan-European Mental Health Coalition and second year of the Addressing mental health challenges in the European Union (‎EU)‎, Iceland and Norway project, funded by the European Union.

worldbank.org (2025) The World Bank has worked to strengthen social registries in LAC and globally for several decades. This technical note aims to contribute to reducing the knowledge gap on the state of the art and challenges of social registries in LAC, identify where they are about various analysis criteria, and generate recommendations on strategies to strengthen and consolidate their role in the design, implementation, and evaluation of social policies in the region. This technical note is organized into five sections, including this introduction.

bruegel.org (23.01.2025) Demographic change and ageing populations in European Union countries will impact many aspects of the economy and have a direct effect on long-term care (LTC) systems. Demand for LTC already exceeds supply in many EU countries, leading to the ‘care gap’. This gap is expected to widen, threatening quality of life for the elderly, exacerbating gender disparities and imposing significant economic costs. The root causes of the gap include demographic shifts, inadequate public investment, workforce shortages and a heavy reliance on informal caregiving.