My name is Todd Petersen and I am the Chief Executive of HeIpAge International, which is a world-wide development agency and network founded in 1983 and now active in over 80 countries. Our mandate is to support disadvantaged older women and men to make sustainable improvements to their lives and those of their families.

We work with over 200 members and partners in the Asia and Pacific region, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, East and Central Europe and North America and Western Europe.

Over the last year HeIpAge International held a series of consultations with older people in the countries where we work in preparation for the 2nd World Assembly. Our publication, State of the Worlds Older People 2002 brings together the outcome of these consultations. We are grateful to the governments of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Canada to enable this to happen and for their assistance in enabling us to bring over 70 older people from developing countries to come to this historic Assembly.

Our collective challenge over this week and the months and years to come is to agree on and implement a Plan of Action on ageing and related government policy which will respond to the wishes and needs of older people, and will have a clear and beneficial impact on their and their families daily lives. HelpAge International is committed to support older people in their own efforts to contribute to the design of the future International Plan of Action on Ageing.

The core message of HelpAge International to the Assembly today is that the greatest and most implacable enemy of old age is poverty. Poverty brings with it hunger, illness, and material disadvantage. It carries the stigma of social exclusion, powerlessness, and of discrimination. Poverty compromises individual and family ability to maintain good health. It puts the wishes of older women and men wish to contribute to family and community through work and household activity under great strain. Older women, who live longer and are likely to be widowed face special problems due to a lifetime of gendered discrimination and lack of material assets.

Old age poverty is both the cause and the effect of intergenerational poverty. It is hard for younger generations to care for their older relatives when they are themselves on or under the poverty line. It is equally hard for older relatives to care for younger relatives orphaned by AIDS or made homeless by civil conflict and natural disaster when they are struggling with lack of resources and illhealth.

Public policy designed to enable social development and poverty eradication to take place does not mainstream issues of ageing. Older women and men tell us that their poverty is still not being taken into account at national level, and at international level. The Millennium Declaration of 2001 does not mention old age. The Millennium Development Goals, agreed by the international community to bring an end to poverty throughout the world, do not identify old age poverty as one of the ills the 21St century must eradicate. As most of the world's older people already live in developing countries, many of which are poor. HelpAge International believes that this is a serious omission. By 2050 over 70 percent of the world's older people will live in Africa and Asia. Unless the poverty of older people is tackled the international goals of poverty reduction by one half by 2015 will never be met.

Older women and men are also telling us the difficulties they face in not participating in civil society processes, which they have a right to be included in. These include the design and delivery of local services, such as health care, sanitation or transport. It also includes how a national poverty reduction programme might deliver benefits to them. They tell us that governments and policy makers ignore them, misunderstand their problems, and fail to involve them in discussions about requirements and solutions.

Older women and men want to and do contribute to their families and communities. Families and communities the world over rely on older people.. Investment in older people delivers social and economic benefits and profits to all generations. The problems they describe are the constraints they face when seeking to support in the way they know best, through farming, caring, household maintenance, running a business. Age often means that support, for example via credit, is denied them. Development programmes open to younger people are closed to them. Education, necessary for building new skills, and opening up new avenues of employment, is often inaccessible because of age.

We believe the task before us all is to end the discrimination older people face. Attitudes need to change. Governments need to demonstrate political will in their policies and programmes, and resources for development need to take account of the growth of older populations in developing countries. The international donor community, as well as national programmes should allocate them their fair share of public, private, national and international resources, as is their right.

Finally, a word about rights. HAI is a rights based development agency, taking as its starting point the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International bill of rights, which includes the Right to Development. We are proud that that the Organisation of African Unity has agreed a regional plan for implementing policy on ageing that has a rights based framework. We believe that action on the promotion and implementation of the rights of older people will deliver social and economic benefits to all generations. The existing UN Principles for the Rights of Older Persons is an important instrument to improve the delivery of policy and action on ageing. Promoting their implementation will go a long way to ensuring best practice with older people.

We urge nothing less than older people be accorded their right to equal treatment and to an equitable share of resources, at national and international level.

I leave you with the words of an older lady from Zimbabwe who said to us:

'You are talking of a 2nd World Assembly on Ageing. What happened to the first? We were never consulted yet you tell us a Plan of Action to address our situation emerged. Who made it?'