forbes.com (20.03.2024) Africa is the most youthful continent, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa under age 30. With high fertility rates and objections to birth control, the youth population will continue to grow. Investing in young people is important for the continent’s transformation, but Africa also needs to prepare for a growing older population that will present new issues in the decades ahead. By the end of this century, Africa will be home to almost 40% of the world’s population, including a 15-fold growth in older adults, from 46 million today to 694 million.

worldbank.org (29.02.2024) This report documents the progress that Pakistanhas made so far in improving its systems fordelivering social protection to its people. Thegovernment has increasingly relied on dataand technology to increase the efficiency andeffectiveness of the program.

economist.com (21.03.2024) Most European countries have been making parental leave more generous since the 1980s. The eu sets a statutory minimum of 14 weeks leave for mothers and, since 2022, two weeks for fathers. But many member states offer leave that is much longer: the average across the eu is 21 weeks for women and three weeks for men, but lengths vary wildly. Paternity leave has been changing the most. Nordic countries were the first to introduce it by statute. Sweden had in 1974 introduced shared paid leave that could be taken by either parent; it now amounts to 69 weeks.

capacity4dev.europa.eu (28.02.2024) In examining data for 106 countries from the 1980s onwards, it transpires that social protection is the most countercyclical type of public expenditure and that social assistance spending has typically been more responsive during economic contractions.

oecd (11.03.2024) Increasingly, countries are integrating personalised public services to enhance access to, and the experience of those services to significantly improve outcomes for service users. Integrated services are particularly valuable for those with multiple and complex needs who require a range of tailored and, in some cases, specialised supports and services from more than one agency or service provider. Service specialisation can make it difficult for these service users to get the right mix of services and at the right time that best meet their needs.

finance.yahoo.com (12.03.2024) Governments across Asia—in Singapore and Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul—are facing a crisis: plummeting birth rates. For several decades now, people in East Asian economies have had fewer and fewer children. Last year, South Korea beat its own record for having the world’s lowest birth rate, reporting 0.72 births per woman for 2023, down from 0.78 in 2022. Singapore reported 0.97 births per woman, the first time the rate has fallen below one. Japan has one of the world’s oldest populations, with a median age of 49.5.

blogs.worldbank.org (12.12.2023)  In Mali, the Jigisemejiri Emergency Social Safety Net Program is protecting the poorest and most vulnerable rural households from the impact of economic shocks and other crises. Since the program’s launch in 2013, the Government of Mali, with support from the World Bank including IDA grants of $122.4 million total, has provided cash transfers to more than 103,000 households to enable them to meet their urgent needs while investing in their children’s human capital and building their resilience to shocks. 

oecd (14.03.2024) This report analyses the sequence of labour market support that individuals receive and evaluates two large public works programmes. It uses rich administrative data and finds positive labour market impacts of the Community Employment and Tús employment programmes. Building on the results of the analyses, the report makes recommendations on how Ireland can further adapt its active labour market policies (ALMPs) to better support its current and future jobseekers.

consilium.europa.eu (11.03.2024) EU employment and social affairs ministers confirmed the provisional agreement reached on 8 February 2024 between the Council’s presidency and the European Parliament’s negotiators on the platform work directive. This EU legal act aims to improve working conditions and regulate the use of algorithms by digital labour platforms. The directive will make the use of algorithms in human resources management more transparent, ensuring that automated systems are monitored by qualified staff and that workers have the right to contest automated decisions.

Swiss voters have given themselves an extra month's pension each year - in a nationwide referendum focusing on living standards for the elderly. The government had warned that the increased payments would be too expensive to afford. But almost 60% of voters said 'yes' in Sunday's poll. Separately, 75% rejected raising the pension age from 65 to 66. The maximum monthly state pension is €2,550 (£2,180; $2,760) - not enough, many say, to live on in Switzerland.