Isabel Ortiz

When the Global Crisis and Youth Bulge Collide: Double the Jobs Trouble for Youth

This working paper: (i) describes recent labour market trends; (ii) analyzes how young people are experiencing a double employment crisis as a result of the demographic phenomenon known as the ‘youth bulge,’ which aggravates the already low demand for labour during the economic downturn; (iii) explores the household level impacts of the jobs crisis, with particular attention to the severe risks posed to children and young workers; (iv) discusses policy responses during the two phases of the crisis—fiscal expansion (2008-09) and fiscal contraction (2010- ); and (v) presents a UN agenda on how to generate decent employment, which covers macroeconomic and sector policy options along with labour-specific strategies to place jobs, especially for youth, at the center of recovery efforts.

Bank of the South: Progress and Challenges

This article presents progress and challenges on the Bank of the South, in the areas of governance and administration, financial resources, investment portfolio, eligibility by type of institution, distribution of investments among member countries and concessionality, procurement, participation, transparency, audits, and environmental and social safeguards.

A Recovery with a Human Face? Summary of a UN E-Discussion

This paper presents a summary of a UN e-discussion on a socially-responsive recovery. Contributors include Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, former UN Under-Secretary-General Jose Antonio Ocampo and many other prominent global thinkers from academia and civil society, including Sir Richard Jolly, Dani Rodrik, Nora Lustig, Martin Khor, Duncan Green, Ha- Joon Chang and Nouriel Roubini, among others. Contents: (i) a chronology of the crisis, (ii) distributional impacts: winners and losers of the global economic crisis, (iii) employment and wages, (iv) food prices, (v) debt and fiscal space for socio-economic recovery, (vi) a Green New Deal?, (vii) retrogression in human rights, (viii) ideology and the crisis and (ix) the need for equitable policies.