1594 people have signed our petition so far

Older people are a particularly poor and vulnerable group in developing countries.  Family support for older people is declining even though older people are increasingly taking on primary carer roles.  With the lack of support, older people face extreme challenges to provide children the necessities to grown up as self supportive adults.  As a result, this poverty is transmitted to the younger generations in their households.  As the world's older population will become increasingly concentrated in the developing world over the coming decades, we call on the EU to Lead the Way as the world's biggest aid donor to make older people more visible in EU development cooperation.

We place particular emphasis on the importance of recognising the significance of population ageing in EU development policy.  We also emphasise the need to fully integrate older people into the programming of the European Development Fund as the instrument with the largest budget for EU development cooperation targeting the world's poorest countries.

We urge you to sign our petition to help us take this message to the most senior decision-makers such as the President of the European Council and key EU decision-makers, including: the Heads of State,  President of the Commission, the President of the Parliament and the High Representative of Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

To Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council:

The EU is the largest donor of aid to poor and developing countries. But your development policies make little mention of ageing or older people. We call on you to amend the EU's development policies and programming guidelines so older people's contributions and rights are recognised and supported in EU development cooperation.