Bangkok--29 Jan--UNISBKK
A regional seminar at the UN Conference Centre will draw urgent attention to the plight of Asia-Pacific’s elderly poor, urging governments to come up with basic pension plans.
“Growing old without a pension is like walking on a tightrope without a safety net. If you fall there’s no one to catch you,” UNESCAP Executive Secretary Kim Hak-Su said.
“The vast majority of older people in Asia live in poverty and their poverty is exacerbated by old age,” he said.
The three day Asia regional seminar “Ensuring Social Protection and Social Pensions in Old Age in the context of rapid ageing in Asia” will be held on 29 - 31 January 2007 at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok, Thailand.
The event, organized by UNESCAP and HelpAge International, with the support of Japan Foundation, will draw policy makers’ attention to the pressing need for social protection mechanisms for the older poor. Specifically, comparisons of country approaches and policy suggestions for pension delivery will be examined.
Participants include experts on social protection and social pensions issues and representatives of governments and civil society organizations from over ten countries in the region.
They will review Asia’s existing pension policies and practices, comparing current schemes like widows’ pensions, a national food allowance, a charity allowance and basic pension provisions. UNESCAP member states will take away concrete policy options for dealing with their aging demographics and preventing large scale poverty.
The rapid increase in the elderly means that national poverty reduction targets in the developing Asian countries and the international targets spelt out in the Millennium Development Goals will be unattainable unless
old age poverty is effectively addressed.
For further information, please contact:
Ms. Penelope R. Lake
United Nations Information Services, Bangkok
Tel: (+662) 288 —1869; Fax: (+662) 288-1052
E-mail: [email protected]