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Briefings

Older people are amongst the poorest people in developing countries, and yet all too often their needs are overlooked in the design of programmes to reduce poverty.

If the world is to meet the targets it has set out for the reduction of poverty in the Millennium Development Goals (goal one is to 'eradicate extreme poverty and hunger'), then it will be vital that older people's poverty is addressed.

Help the Aged is calling on the UK Government and the rest of the world to ensure that a proportion of aid funding is spent on direct measures to address older people's poverty. We are calling for a 'social pension' for all older people, i.e. a small cash transfer paid directly to older people. We know this is an effective way of delivering aid to some of the poorest people in the world.

In this section you will find more information on the poverty of older people worldwide, and our work to secure social pensions for older people everywhere.

Briefing on reducing poverty in developing countries (January 2005)

A briefing on the work Help the Aged and HelpAge International are undertaking jointly within the Make Poverty History coalition, which is calling on the Government for more and better aid, fair trade and debt cancellation.