Universal Health Coverage is a health insurance system that ensures every citizen in the population has equitable access to quality and effective promotive, preventive, curative, and rehabilitative health services. Meanwhile, the Medan City Government of Indonesia is trying to improve health services through the Medan Berkah Health Insurance Program by adopting Universal Health Coverage, which aims to provide Universal Health Coverage to the entire community. This study aims to explain the implementation and projection of the development of health services of the Medan City Government with the Universal Health Coverage System in the Medan Berkah Health Insurance Program which is intended as a step in providing opportunities for all people to get equal opportunities in health services, especially for the poor. This research uses qualitative research by using the literacy study method by studying related documents and conducting in-depth observations. Data analysis included data reduction, presentation, and conclusion drawing. The Medan City Government implemented the Universal Health Coverage Program in Jaminan Kesehatan Medan Berkah, which aims to improve health services in the city. The government is committed to simplifying the bureaucracy, managing the medical workforce, and collaborating with stakeholders and the community. However, challenges include low community participation, limited resources, lack of coordination, and limited access to information, which hinder the successful implementation of the program.

This study analyzes the importance of strengthening the design of Indonesia’s maritime axis policy. This research uses a qualitative approach to systematically explain the dynamics and importance of strengthening world maritime policy, where the Nvivo 12 Plus tool is used to analyze data and answer the research questions posed. This research shows that Indonesia still has complex bureaucratic and institutional problems and aspects of political identity and leadership attitudes that require systematic and comprehensive improvement. Then, the draft for strengthening the maritime axis policy in Indonesia includes three policy recommendations: reformulating the focus of the maritime axis policy, comprehensive and coherent governance, and an integrated administrative framework, as well as improving the political identity and attitudes of leaders in public policy. Substantially, the relative failure of the Global Maritime Axis (GMA) policy, known as Joko Widodo’s concept of regulating the Indonesian government based on geographical location, was caused by the dominance of political factors and domestic bureaucratic problems. Apart from that, the lack of priority narratives in the maritime and development sectors means that the Indonesian government’s priorities are more oriented towards GMA infrastructure aspects and at the expense of other fundamental elements. This study encourages the Indonesian government to accelerate a more substantive GMA. However, this research needs to be expanded because the analysis results were only carried out through secondary data and focused on two important aspects of GMA. Therefore, further research is needed that explains the prospects for GMA policy in Indonesia in more detail.

This paper analyzes the impact of wage subsidies on lower-skilled formal workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It employs a multi-sectoral, empirically-calibrated general equilibrium model to capture the economy-wide transactions between the formal and informal sectors and assess policy simulations in the DRC. The simulations, both in the short and long run, indicate that when the government provides wage subsidies to lower-skilled workers, it significantly improves the real disposable incomes of both formal and informal households. There is a general increase across formal and informal sectors in real household disposable incomes due to the wage subsidy. The results show that subsidy allocation narrows the income gap between high and low-income households, as well as between formal and informal sectors. The findings are insightful for wage policy simulations, as the wage subsidy targeting lower-skilled formal workers increases real GDP from the expenditure side by 1.19% and 3.19% in the short and long run, respectively, from the baseline economy.

This study investigates the influence of Environmental, Social, and Governance Disclosures (ESGD) on the profitability of firms, using a sample of 385 publicly listed companies on the Thai Stock Exchange. Data from 2018 to 2022 is sourced from the Bloomberg database, focusing on ESGD scores as indicators of companies’ ESG commitments. The study utilizes a structural equation model to examine the relationships between independent variables; ESGD, Earnings Per Share (EPS), Debt to Assets ratio (DA), Return on Investment Capital (ROIC), Total Assets (TA), and dependent variables Tobin’s Q (TBQ) and Return on Assets (ROA). The analysis reveals a positive relationship between ESGD and TBQ, but not with ROA. Further exploration is conducted to determine if different ESGD levels (high, medium, low) yield consistent effects on TBQ. The findings indicate discrepancies: high and medium ESGD levels are associated with a negative impact on TBQ when EPS increased, whereas low ESGD levels correlate with an increase in TBQ with rising EPS. This nuanced approach challenges the conventional uniform treatment of ESGD in previous research and provides a deeper understanding of how varying commitments to ESG practices affect a firm’s market valuation and profitability. These insights are crucial for firm management, highlighting the importance of ESGD in relation to other financial variables and their effects on market value. This study offers a new perspective on ESGD’s impact, emphasizing the need for differentiated strategies based on ESG commitment levels.

The competencies of public health professionals serve as the cornerstone for curriculum development ensuring that educational programs are pertinent efficient and attuned to the requirements of both the public health workforce and the communities they serve. This study endeavors to investigate the knowledge competency of public health professionals in Thailand with the intention of refining the suitability of knowledge competency for curriculum development tailored to the needs of public health professionals in Thailand. Employing a qualitative study, the study conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 university lecturers in public health programs in Northeastern Thailand. The data collected were transcribed and analyzed using content analysis. The findings elucidate that the lecturers articulated a core knowledge content pertinent to public health professionals in Thailand delineated across five principal themes and thirteen subjects within the public health curriculum. These themes encompassed: 1) Epidemiology and disease prevention (comprising two subjects), 2) Health promotion and community health (comprising four subjects), 3) Research methods in public health and biostatistics (comprising two subjects), 4) Public health administration, health system, and laws (comprising three subjects), and 5) Environmental health and occupational health and safety (comprising two subjects). Subsequently, this study scrutinized five core courses to formulate a model curriculum for public health. The proposed model curriculum is intended for application in both planning and the development of the public health workforce, fostering interdisciplinary learning and nurturing public health professionals rooted in the authentic context of Thailand.