HelpAge International calls on the European Union (EU) to:

take an intergenerational approach to development and:

• include age- and gender-disaggregated poverty analysis

• further existing obligations to older people and to children within Commission responses at a regional, multiagency and national level

• ensure that even explicitly youth-centred policies include support for their families and communities.

develop integrated programme responses to older people in communities affected by HIV/AIDS that:

• target older people, people living with AIDS and orphaned children under their care with comprehensive treatment, care, support and prevention programmes
  

• provide direct support to older carers and families affected by AIDS through social pensions and cash transfers
  

• ensure infection data is collected for the over-50s.

promote a social protection package of health, education and social pensions for vulnerable households, especially those with older people and children, by:

• helping national governments to resource, extend, and when necessary implement social protection measures, including universal old-age pensions. For example, non-targeted budgetary support in the EU’s National Indicative Programmes could be directed to social protection measures. This would support countries that are keen to adopt social protection pilot schemes or implement poverty-reduction policies
  

• ensuring, as stated in the Cotonu Agreement (Article 25), adequate levels of public spending in the social sectors
  

• supporting ways of strengthening "traditional" or "informal" social security for poor people in developing countries.