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.

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.

euro.who.(October 2018) This policy brief is one of a series on addressing market and policy failures in the pharmaceutical sector that was prepared for the Austrian EU Presidency. It aims to inform discussions about stimulating more meaningful productivity in terms of R&D. More specifically, it explores how R&D efforts can be steered to areas of unmet clinical needs and how efficiency in the R&D process can be increased. It also explicitly considers concrete options for strength

Les dangers du contrôle budgétaire par l'Etat des dépenses de Sécurité sociale et les raisons de l'équilibre financiers français.

An enormous amount of literature has emerged over the last few years in the context of the “Future of Work”. Academics, think tanks and policy makers have fuelled rich discussions about how the future of work might look like and how we can shape it. Indeed, labour markets in developing and developed countries are likely to undergo major transformations in the next years and decades. However, despite a growing body of research in this area, there exists no universally accepted definition of what exactly the “Future of Work” encompasses and what the most relevant drivers are.

ILO (23.10.2018) ILO Director-General, Guy Ryder, calls on businesses to help make universal social protection a reality, in a speech at the fourth annual meeting of the ILO Global Business Network for Social Protection Floors, in Geneva, Switzerland.

The report proposes a progressive agenda to take action on health inequalities, and—in doing so—achieve the SDGs on health. Only by simultaneously providing universal health coverage to all populations in Europe and evaluating policies regarding their health impacts can we level the inequalities in health. Doing so promises economic benefits at a national level, but more importantly, it delivers on a basic human right: the right to health, irrespective of place of birth, ability, or socioeconomic background.

EurActiv (16.10.2018) 87% of assets managed by the world’s 100 largest public pension funds are yet to undergo a formal climate risk assessment, according to research published on Tuesday (23 October), with only 15% of them adopting a coal exclusion policy.