The European Union (EU) is one of HelpAge International's largest donors and has financed some of our most important programmes. Current projects include:

• a five-year co-financed project in western Rajasthan, India, to secure access to water through improved traditional-storage techniques
• a four-year co-financed project in two provinces of Cambodia to increase household incomes, strengthen food security and improve the health of vulnerable communities through the establishment of older people's associations
• a three-year co-financed project in Tanzania to increase both HIV/AIDS-related services and community income schemes for older people, and to make the wider community aware of older people's needs
• a three-year co-financed project to convince development practitioners within the European Union and member states to include responses to old age and intergenerational poverty in development instruments
• starting in February 2007, a five-year co-financed project in Tanzania to improve service delivery for older people and support older people to secure their entitlements
• starting in March 2007, a four-year project in Vietnam to improve livelihoods and health of disadvantaged groups, including older people
• starting in May 2007, a four-year co-financed project in Lao to reduce poverty and improve health status of older people through the development of approaches led by older people

Projects previously funded by the European Union include:

• a three-year co-financed project in western China to alleviate older people's poverty and improve their health
• a four-year co-financed project in Mozambique to strengthen the capacity of civil society to work towards reducing poverty
  
• support to older people's self-help groups in Moldova (funded by EU TACIS)
• post-emergency rehabilitation work in Southern Sudan (funded by EU Humanitarian Plus)
• post-earthquake reconstruction work in Gujarat (funded by the EU Delegation in Delhi).

European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO)

We have been an ECHO implementing partner since 1983 and a signatory to successive Framework Partnership Agreements. These have enabled us to carry out humanitarian aid programmes in Bosnia, Croatia, India, Northern Iraq, South Korea, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan and Zimbabwe. In 2003, ECHO’s disaster-preparedness programme (DIPECHO) funded a disaster-preparedness project in Haiti.

In 1999, ECHO funded us to undertake groundbreaking research into the needs and contributions of older people in humanitarian crises. The findings were published jointly with ECHO in: Older people in disasters and humanitarian crises: Guidelines for best practice. The report recommends ways to reduce older people's vulnerability and enhance their capacity to contribute to the relief effort.