October 2019

Lithuanian President Nausėda: pension raises must outpace wage growth

Can Lithuanian pensioners turn Lithuanian economy upside down? Upon hearing the threats of Lithuania’s commercial banks what will happen to the economy if the ruling farmers and greens (LFGU) move forward with the proposal to tax bank assets, which is part of Lithuania’s plan to rake in additional 100 million euro for welfare spending, and the pensions, too, it may seem inevitable. Low Lithuanian pensions The average pension in Lithuania is currently 345 euros, however around 60 percent of...

September 2019

Linking financial services and social protection for resilience: lessons from Kenya

Climate-related shocks and stresses threaten people and communities around the world, compounding existing poverty and vulnerability and undermining long-term development. National and international actors are searching for new and better ways to help people deal with increasing climate risks and, in turn, support long-term resilience. One potential way of doing this is to facilitate access to, and use of, adequate financial services such as savings, loans and insurance in underserved communities. The role of social protection (SP) programmes in helping...

Ghana. NPRA assures workers of payment of Three-Tier pension benefits

The National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) has given the assurance that the industry was ready for the first batch of Ghanaian workers who would be retiring at age 60 in 2020 to begin enjoying their benefits under the new Three-Tier Pension Scheme. As of December 2018, the total Pension Fund had increased to Gh¢22.2 billion from the about Gh¢20.7 billion in 2017. This is made up of Gh¢13.1 billion of Assets Under Management (AUM) for Private Pension Funds and...

India. Government Issues Notification Announcing Amendments In Pension Rules

The families of government employees dying after serving less than seven years will get enhanced pension now with the Centre amending rules. The move is likely to benefit the widows of Central Armed Police Forces personnel. Earlier, the government employees should have rendered at least seven years of service in case of death so that the family could get the enhanced family pension at 50 per cent of the last pay drawn. Now, even with less than seven years...

The Social Protection Indicator for Asia: Assessing Progress

By Asian Development Bank This publication provides updates on Social Protection Indicators of 24 countries in Asia, with an analysis of 2015 data on social protection programs. It shows progress in expenditure, primarily driven by social insurance and coverage between 2009 and 2015. Spending on women has improved in several countries, yet others continued to favor the nonpoor over the poor, and men over women. The Social Protection Index---now the Social Protection Indicator---was developed by the Asian Development Bank...

August 2019

Performance and Challenges of the Income Protection System for Older People in Ecuador

By Ignacio Raul Apella The purpose of this work is to analyze the performance of the Ecuadorian pension system, its challenges, and available policy options. Therefore, the study analyzes coverage, financing sufficiency, and sustainability indicators that were created based on information from the Encuesta Nacional de Empleo, Desempleo y Subempleo (National Employment, Unemployment and Underemployment Survey) that was carried out over 2003-16. Likewise, actuarial simulations are made by using the World Bank pension reform options simulation toolkit. The findings...

Income Inequality and Government Transfers in Mexico

 By Frederic Lambert, Hyunmin Park We analyze microdata from Mexico's survey on household income and expenditures (ENIGH) to study the evolution of income inequality in Mexico over 2004-16, identify its sources, and investigate how it was affected by government social policy. We find evidence of only a small decline in inequality over this period. The observed decline may be attributed to government transfers, notably targeted cash transfers (Prospera) and non-contributory pensions. In 2016, those two programs accounted for more...

July 2019

Digitalization and the Future of Work: Macroeconomic Consequences

By Melanie Arntz, Terry Gregory, Ulrich Zierahn Computing power continues to grow at an enormous rate. Simultaneously, more and better data is increasingly available and Machine Learning methods have seen significant breakthroughs in the recent past. All this pushes further the boundary of what machines can do. Nowadays increasingly complex tasks are automatable at a precision which seemed infeasible only few years ago. The examples range from voice and image recognition, playing Go, to self-driving vehicles. Machines are able...

June 2019

Climate Impact Pledge: Tackling the climate emergency

By Meryam Omi Public concern about the danger posed by climate change has reached unprecedented levels. More than a million students have walked out of classes worldwide, while protests have been held across dozens of countries, to call for swift action from governments1. This is no fad. The world is truly in the midst of a climate emergency, which could have drastic consequences for markets, companies and, therefore, our clients’ assets. With the UN warning that there is little over...

Social Programmes, Poverty Eradication and Labour Inclusion. Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean

By Lais Abramo, Simone Cecchini, Beatriz Morales Diverse social programmes — including conditional cash transfer programmes, labour and production inclusion programmes and social pensions — are being implemented in Latin American and Caribbean countries with the aim of ending poverty and reducing inequalities throughout the life cycle. This book offers an up-to-date analysis of these programmes and the way they relate to labour inclusion, and analyses ongoing debates regarding the possible incentives and disincentives they create in terms of...