HelpAge International is calling for:

• Public recognition of the value, contribution and rights of older women carers to reduce stigma and discrimination against them.
• More sophisticated analysis and understanding of the role of older women and men in caring for vulnerable children, and for adults and children living with HIV, so that urgent support can be targeted at these older carers.
• Better support to access existing services, for example, help with transport costs, identity papers, legal paperwork, access to anti-retrovirals, waivers and subsidies such as school grants.
• Home-based care policies and programmes, including standards of care guidelines that address the specific economic, health and psychosocial needs of older women carers and support them in their caregiving roles.
• Agencies designing and implementing HIV and AIDS programmes to ensure that older women carers are systematically involved in the design, implementation and monitoring of prevention, care and treatment interventions at household and community level.
• Further research and collection of age and gender disaggregated data, on infection rates and on access to treatment, including for people over 50, to design and implement appropriate HIV and AIDS policies and programmes that meet the rights and needs of older women carers.
• Older carers to be provided with economic support, in the form of a social pension or other cash transfer, to help with the costs of care, to avoid distress sales of assets, and to compensate for the time taken away from income earning activities and allocated care.
• Older carers to be provided with the necessary support including legal advice, fi nancial support and literacy programmes, obtaining documentation needed to access entitlements for themselves and those in their care.
• Older women carers’ rights to information on HIV prevention, transmission, care and treatment which is age-appropriate and accessible be recognised, in order to protect and care for themselves and their dependants. Older women carers must be provided with and involved in the design of appropriate caregiving information and training, including in the delivery of anti-retrovirals.