Social protection encompasses a range of mechanisms to provide safety nets and support to poor and disadvantaged members of society.

HelpAge International is calling on all governments to provide a package of social protection, including basic healthcare, education and income.

In particular, we are exploring ways of delivering cash transfers to poor and vulnerable households, including social pensions for older people.

Older people’s poverty

By 2050, nearly one in four people in Asia and Latin America, and more than one in ten in sub-Saharan Africa, will be aged over 60.

80% of older people living in developing countries have no regular income – 100 million live on less than a dollar a day.

As people age and their income through work declines, they face a greater risk of debt, hunger and destitution. Age also makes it more difficult to access health and other services, increasing the likelihood of older people remaining poor.

In communities affected by HIV and AIDS, many older people have to take on the role of bringing up orphans and vulnerable children with little or no support.

Social pensions: an effective use of aid

A lifetime of poverty makes it hard for people to save and accumulate assets. This means that many people, especially older women, face chronic poverty in old age.

Poverty rates in households with older people are up to 29% higher than households without. And households headed by older adults with young dependants are most at risk of extreme poverty.

Social protection in the form of a "social pension" – a regular non-contributory cash payment – can make a tremendous difference to the lives of older people, their families and communities.

Pensions enable access to food, water, health and the ability to generate an income. They increase the chance of education for grandchildren and can stimulate cash economies.

Pensions not poverty

Governments and international bodies are increasingly seeing the importance of universal non-contributory pensions as a core element of national social-protection programmes. For example, the Commission for Africa calls for social-protection strategies to be developed by the Africa Union's NEPAD programme by 2007.

Establishing, or extending, non-contributory pension programmes in all developing countries would significantly reduce poverty and vulnerability among older people and their families, and would help to achieve Millenium Development Goal 1 to eradicate extreme poverty by 2015.