Population ageing is one of the world's most significant social, political and economic developments, one that will dramatically change the way that societies and economies function. As the world's biggest aid donor with the core development objective of reducing poverty, the EU has a responsibility to take action. However; ageing continues to be overlooked in EU development policies and programmes.
Current EU policy focuses heavily on population growth and youth obscuring the dramatic shift towards older populations worldwide. While global population growth has been slowing for a number of years, the number of people aged over 60 will double to reach 2 billion, far outnumbering children below the age of 15. 80 per cent of these older people will live in developing countries. As today's young people grow older, developing countries will experience ageing at unprecedented rates. In marked contrast to the experience of developed countries, developing countries will get old before they get rich.
Population ageing is driven by lower birth rates and higher life expectancy, and can be seen as a triumph of development. However, people in developing countries are often growing older only to experience more years of chronic poverty. With four-fifths of older people globally having no regular income, vital services such as affordable healthcare are beyond their reach. Household and family structures are changing and traditional forms of support for older people are falling away. Older people increasingly care for their grandchildren particularly where parents are absent due to migration or death from AIDS. Households headed by older people are particularly vulnerable to shocks with the majority subsisting on or below the poverty line. The stabilising potential of social protection systems for these families is immense and the European Commission's forthcoming policy on social protection in development aid must incorporate these needs.
To reinforce their impact, EU development programmes must recognise the huge contributions made by older people, often as workers, farmers, carers and teachers. Indeed, with the median age of farmers rising above 50 in some countries, some analysts say that rural development is increasingly powered by older people. Also, in terms of older peoples' rights a policy gap must be addressed; the EU highlights the cross-cutting nature of the rights of children, indigenous people and other groups, but not explicitly those of older people.
Ten years on from the UN Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing 2002 which stressed the need to mainstream ageing into development, evidence on how well older people are included in national poverty reduction plans has proved patchy and difficult to obtain. Issues relating to ageing and older people's rights remain mostly absent in development policies.
However, there's growing support for stronger integration of older people into EU development policies. Through the grassroots campaign, Age Demands Action, older people are fighting to claim their rights in 60 countries around the world. As part of this campaign, the European intergenerational movement 'Make it Ageless' launched in several member states, unites younger and older Europeans in solidarity with older people in developing countries. Over 6,000 Europeans have now signed a petition calling on the EU to fully include older people in its development policies and programmes.
The EU now has three chances to strengthen its development policies and programmes around ageing. First, it must promote age-friendly programming at the national level in the ongoing negotiations and programming for the next EU budget period from 2014-2020.
Second, 2012 is the European Year for Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations and provides a useful platform for dialogue and commitments on these issues. However, the European Commission argues that the European Year is targeted only at EU Member States and remains reluctant to mainstream the principles of the European Year into its external policies. HelpAge International's network of independent Affiliates in the EU and a number of MEPs are urging the European Commission to address this disconnect between internal and external policy.
The third opportunity is the debate around a post-2015 development framework and the development of an EU position on what this framework should look like. It's critical that older people are no longer marginalised in development frameworks, but are fully included in these discussions and in the design of a subsequent framework.
If the EU is to successfully implement people-oriented, inclusive and sustainable development cooperation, we must compel it to grasp these opportunities and commit to mainstreaming ageing across its policy and programming. If we don't, the fast-growing numbers of older people world-wide will be further marginalised and the EU's own efforts to eradicate global poverty will be seriously undermined. We should therefore all do what we can to persuade the EU to make its overseas development policies truly age-friendly.