ABSTRACT
For the past fifty years, older people have been all but invisible in international development policy and practice. There has long been interest in the appropriateness and possible development of social security for the developing countries. The concept of social security is to use social means to prevent deprivation, and vulnerability to deprivation. Around one quarter of the world's older population live in absolute poverty, the majority in developing countries. For many of these, late life poverty is but the end of a lifetime of poverty. Nearly half the population of much of Asia lives in poverty, most of whom have no access to basic sanitation. The Asian/Pacific region, home to 600 million older people, is the most rapidly ageing world region, with 20 per cent of the projected population in 2050 over the age of 60, accounting for two-thirds of the world's 2 billion elders.
