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Covid-19 had major socio-economic impacts on the populations and societies of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. Government reactions depended on their public health institutions/infrastructures, official ideologies and understanding of the situation, as well as wars/conflicts and sanctions. To counter the impact of the pandemic, countries adopted a combination of cash payments to the poor, furlough schemes and financial support to employers. But public health services in most countries have been poorly resourced to cope with the pandemic. Considering that most countries are characterized by inequality in the distribution of income/wealth, entitlement and access to health services and social protection, states need to reorientate public expenditure towards public health and the reduction of inequality.

Social policies predate the welfare state and have left their mark on the genesis and development of the welfare state in different countries, that testifies to the importance of historical and ideological path-dependencies of social policies in different countries. The political/political-economy ecology literature links theories of social welfare and welfare state to environmental issues like resource use through the relationship between economic growth and sustainability. Orthodox mainstream neo-classical and Keynesian economics rely on economic growth in order to raise living standards but using different channels and mechanisms. It is this reliance on economic growth and its depletive effect on environmental resources that has lied at the heart of the critiques of growth oriented liberal/neo-liberal or Keynesian economic policies, and for that matter, economic policies of centralised economies of socialist countries. This paper will start with a critique of conservative environmentalism that is inspired by Malthusian population pressure (with all its social policy implications), that to some extent also informs the degrowth approach. It would then ask how to meet the increasing health, education and other social needs whilst minimising the depletion of natural resources. I argue that the answer to the question of a sustainable social policy in part lies in an economic model, a la Kalecki and others, that can manage/negotiate the composition of output whilst investing in resources to reduce depletion of natural resources and greenhouse emissions. This is a growth strategy based on 'the human theory of needs' that meets the needs of current generation and provides some measure of inter-generational justice. The welfare and social policy counterpart of this should involve public and collective provisioning of socially necessary services of health and education as well as a range of other care services that will reduce per capita cost through economies of scale and scope whilst providing an equitable access to ...

The financial crisis of 2009 has had a devastating impact on the people of Europe, throwing millions into unemployment and poverty. The impact was most severe in the Southern and Eastern members of the EU. The EU's response was more concerned with the impact of the crisis on the viability of the banking and financial sector than on employment, poverty and livelihood. Following a brief discussion of the empirical evidence on the social impact of the crisis, this paper provides a critical appraisal of a major EU initiative in 2013: the Social Investment Package (SIP). The social investment (SI) approach to social policy has its origin in the social democratic response to the Great Depression of the 1930s. In Sweden Ava and Gunnar Myrdal argued for a new approach to social policy that would focus on social investment in human capital. Notwithstanding the intrinsic merits of a SI approach this paper argues that it is a policy paradigm without a foundation in any specific economic theory, and its adoption has been influenced by country specific historical, social and economic institutions and developments. The SIP has been primarily focused on the supply side of the labour market in order to increase people's skills and their participation in the labour market and society at large. It also covered other related key areas of early childhood education, housing and social protection. The SIP has been complemented by the launch of the European Pillar of Social Rights that if backed up by appropriate legislation and setting up of rules similar to the European Monetary Union would strengthen the social dimension of the EU leading to a European Social Union. The EU has to balance its plan for economic and monetary union based on free market with its desire for social cohesion and a social union. The latter requires some degree of fiscal union to provide support for regions and people who have been left behind and have been negatively affected by the economic policies of the EU and member states. Social cohesion calls for ...