Between the aged and challenges of organizational growth

HOW are the older people treated by the modern generation? If it is indeed true that older people of today were young generation of yesterday, then today’s older generation are intrinsically linked to today and can therefore play a more than passive role in shaping today’s development paradigms and ideologies if given the opportunity to make their contributions.

While the Nigerian government has over the years, especially since 2004 introduced the contributory pension scheme which is aimed at eliminating frauds that are associated with pension scheme and ensure enduring stability of the system, conscious efforts must also be made to include older people in the development process of the country.

In the private sector, attempts are often made to recall retired staffers back into the system to either inculcate the ‘spirit of the old order’, which aided organizational growth into the younger staff to revive ailing firm. This is not replicated in the public sector because of absence of policy on how to incorporate older people back into the system to ensure inculcation of practices that yielded results in time past for continued growth.

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry of Labour and Productivity, Dr. Clement Illoh rued this missing link while signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the International Federation on Ageing Nigeria (IFAN) in Abuja.

His words: “Government is redoubling its efforts to adopt several strategies in terms of identification of elders for voluntary works, transmission of their experiences and knowledge to younger ones, the issue of assistance to families in terms of family responsibilities are of paramount importance.”

Dr Illoh consequently called for the social inclusion and empowerment of the Nigerian senior citizens in the scheme of nation building.

He decried poor treatment meted out to elderly people even by their own children describing it as a worrisome development.

Dr. Illoh called for increasing participation of the elderly in the labour force stressing that they still constitute part of the active labour force of the country.

He explained that the MoU the Ministry signed with IFAN focused on three critical areas to include the Elderly Empowerment Scheme, National Productivity Audit and the Elderly Social Response Initiative with particular emphasis on information, education, promotion of policies, programmes and international best practices with the overall aim of improving the quality of lives of the elderly persons in terms of their own lives, the community and the nation.

He expressed optimism that the signing of the MoU underscored government commitment to the public private partnership, which is key to the development of social security in Nigeria.

The Permanent Secretary maintained that the issue of social security is not new to the Ministry, adding that the Nigerian National Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) is solidly committed to the provision of social security to Nigerians including the elderly.

He stressed that at the moment, the NSITF is covering the issue of social security in the world of work through the implementation of the employee compensation scheme.

He explained: “The NSITF has done a very good classical work, a blue print has been developed on the provision of social assistance to Nigerians and the document will soon be forwarded to Government for consideration and necessary directives.”

Dr Illoh stressed that the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari places high premium on the transformation of social assistance to Nigerians, which its implementation falls within the competence statutory responsibility of the ministry of labour.

Elaborating on the Elderly Employment Scheme, which is one of the three critical areas of the MOU, he called on every Nigerians not to see retirement as a tragic end of their lives.

He said: “Retirement is not the end of life, it is not a death sentence, you should look at retirement with pride and see it as second phase of your life, look at it with optimism instead of looking at it as a punishment, the earlier we change our mindsets on this misconception, the better”.

The Permanent Secretary assured that government will continue to support and encourage the signed MOU to the highest level of implementation noting that the Ministry has the expertise and capacity to perform and give it the maximum publicity it deserves pointing out that NSITF will drive the process to a reasonable conclusion so that it becomes part of the consciousness of the Nigerian society. He concluded.

Speaking earlier, the Director, International Federation on Ageing-Nigeria (IFAN), Ike Willie- Nwobu, emphasized the importance of the social security of the elderly, which is strategic to the national security adding that it is a major platform towards building culture of national resilience.

While expressing worry over the absence of survey on the elderly productivity index in the country, he said that he was delighted that the collaboration of the Federal Ministry of Labour and IFAN will help deliver a reliable survey to Nigeria.

Also speaking, the Director of Social Security and Cooperative Development, Mrs. Mojisola Sonubi said that it is a natural phenomenon that as people grow older, their strengths weaken and productivity drops and retirement becomes imperative stressing that it beholds on government at all levels to protect this group of people and improve their quality of lives.

She noted that engaging the senior citizens could provide solutions to the challenges facing Nigeria in the areas of child labour, insurgency, insecurity as well as unemployment noting that sharing in their wealth of experience can help the nation to bounce back to its glorious days while making the senior citizens feel involved in the promotion of ethics, values and culture.

This comes as a new study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) reveals a global shortfall of 13.6 million care workers undermining the delivery of quality services to more than half of the world’s older persons.

The report stresses that more than half of the global population aged 65 and above, representing 300 million people, is excluded from urgently needed Long-Term Care (LTC).

The new ILO study LTC protection for older persons: A review of coverage deficits in 46 countries which covers 80 per cent of the world population aged 65 and over finds extreme deficits in social protection for older persons in need of long-term care due to a lack of 13.6 million LTC workers worldwide.

In Africa, which lacks 1.5 million LTC workers, more than 90 per cent of older persons do not receive long-term care services when in need. The most important deficit in absolute numbers is observed in Asia and the Pacific where there is a shortage of 8.2 million LTC workers meaning 65 per cent of the older population is excluded from access to long-term care. Filling these gaps would result in a great number of jobs created.

The ILO Health Policy Coordinator and author of the study, Xenia Scheil-Adlung, explained: “We face these shortfalls despite the fact that the bulk of care – up to 80 per cent of LTC work – is provided by unpaid female family members of older persons. Their numbers exceed by far the numbers of formal LTC workers in all countries.”

According to the ILO expert, the situation is aggravated by a complete lack of LTC coverage in most social protection schemes. Only 5.6 per cent of the global population lives in countries that provide universal LTC coverage.

While more than 48 per cent of the world’s population is not protected by national LTC legislation, another 46.3 per cent are, to a large extent, excluded from LTC coverage due to narrow regulations that limit benefits only to the poorest. The latter forces many persons aged 65 and over to pay out of their pockets for LTC services.

“This deplorable situation is reflected in the very low public LTC expenditure, which amounts to less than 1 per cent of GDP on average globally. The lowest public expenditure is found in Africa, where the majority of countries spend 0 per cent of GDP on LTC,” Scheil-Adlung added.

The most “generous” countries can be found in Europe but on average spend only 2 per cent or less of their GDP on LTC. As a result, the older population living in developed and developing countries has to pay up to 100 per cent of LTC out of their own pocket.

On her part, Director of the ILO’s Social Protection Department, Isabel Ortiz, said: “The neglect of vital needs of older persons and the exploitation of unpaid female family members is the result of many years of underinvestment in LTC protection. Closing the gaps and providing universal LTC coverage would respect the rights and dignity of both older persons and their caregivers and create millions of jobs.”

The disregard of LTC needs points to age and gender discrimination – often referred to as “ageism”. This is reflected in the systematic unequal treatment of older persons needing LTC services compared to younger persons with similar health-care needs, the ignorance of older persons’ rights, the large absence of LTC workers and public underfunding.

Today’s ageism is also visible in the irrational fear expressed in the prevailing public opinion that LTC is not affordable rather than seeing the benefits of investing in LTC in terms of job creation and improved welfare of the population.

While frequently age discrimination is not considered a serious concern, it has the same social and economic impacts as other forms of discrimination and is experienced by LTC recipients in the form of impoverishment, exclusion and sometimes even abuse and violence in LTC environments.

The study suggests making LTC a top priority on the policy agendas of all countries by: guaranteeing universal LTC protection based on the core principles of national social protection floors as outlined in ILO Recommendation 202; financing through national social insurance schemes or taxes and reducing out-of-pocket payments to a minimum and increasing the LTC workforce to make quality services available to all in need, generating much-needed jobs.