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.

(18.03.3025) This brief aims to improve our understanding of how population ageing affects the financial sustainability of health systems, focusing on its likely impact on affordable access to health care (‎financial protection)‎. It uses the Population Ageing Financial Sustainability Gap for Health Systems (‎PASH)‎ Simulator to forecast the impact of population ageing on health system revenue and spending between now and 2060 to estimate the likely size of the ageing-related health financing gap in selected countries in Europe (‎Bulgaria, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain)‎.

theconversation.com (18.03.2025) The Medicaid system has emerged as an early target of the Trump administration’s campaign to slash federal spending. A joint federal and state program, Medicaid provides health insurance coverage for more than 72 million people, including low-income Americans and their children and people with disabilities. It also helps foot the bill for long-term care for older people. In late February 2025, House Republicans advanced a budget proposal that would potentially cut US$880 billion from Medicaid over 10 years.

Vanguard News (17.03.2025) In a strategic move to expand Nigeria’s  social protection safety net, the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund, NSITF, has announced a partnership with the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ.

voxdev.org (21.01.2025) Women in Mexico who switched to digital cash transfers face higher costs and time accessing payments but gain bargaining power. Improving ATM access, reducing fees, providing timely information on the date of transfers and boosting financial literacy could mitigate these challenges.

cnbc.com (09.03.2025) By 2030, a quarter of Singaporeans will be 65 or over — in 2010, the figure was one in 10. Artificial intelligence is set to play a “huge” role in elderly care in Singapore, said Chuan De Foo, a research fellow at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health. But the use of technology must be balanced with human caregiving, said Dr Han Ei Chew, a research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, describing a “high tech, but high touch” approach.

CEPR (24.02.2025) As governments worldwide grapple with labour shortages and systemic budget shortfalls, the question arises of how unemployment insurance policies potentially contribute to this imbalance by increasing and extending nonemployment. This column argues that recent debates around unemployment insurance reform, which often focus on the effect among job seekers, overlook potential unintended consequences among the employed. Taking moral hazard among employed workers into account has substantial effects on the welfare implications of unemployment insurance.

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.

Euractiv (03.03.2025) Poland intends to use its presidency to promote European solutions in digital healthcare transformation while working towards establishing common standards for medical data at the EU level. Along with healthcare digitalisation, prevention, mental health and combating disinformation were also discussed. Healthcare digitalisation in Poland is an area that may be of interest to the European Union.