Sites for sore eyes

For sites on pensions, see The World Bank Group’s Pensions online at www.worldbank.org/pensions, which provides a wealth of information including country reports, primer notes and papers dealing with pensions reform issues. Also try The World Bank Institute at www.worldbank.org/wbi/pensions/rpublications.html for articles on the World Bank’s thinking and worldwide involvement in pension reform.

A critical and provocative assessment of the World Bank’s Pension Strategy, “Rethinking Pension Reform: Ten Myths About Social Security Systems” by Peter R. Orszag and Joseph E. Stiglitz, is online at www.worldbank.org/knowledge/chiefecon/conferen/papers/rethinking.pdf.

The Pension Watch-World project, www.globalaging.org/pension/index.htm, provides up to date worldwide information on developments on pensions and acts as an alert to pension-cutting policies pursued by major institutions like the World Bank.

International Labour Organization’s Social Security Policy and Development Branch, www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/socsec/pol/, offers an extensive list of social security papers, reports, guides and manuals and ILO conventions. The ILO database on labour standards is available at www.ilo.org/public/english/sitemap.htm The ILO’s most recent document on social protection can be downloaded from www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc89/reports.htm.

The International Social Security Association has databases of country-specific information on social security programmes and reforms at www.issa.int/engl/homef.htm. Another site for detailed and accurate social security programmes by country is that of the USA’s Social Security Association at www.ssa.gov/statistics/ssptw/1999/English/index.html. To find links to social security sites of countries around the world and associations, see www.ssa.gov/international/links.html.

The Pensions Institute, www.bbk.ac.uk/res/pi, offers discussions papers, special reports, a virtual library and press releases focused on pensions research. Online working papers on pension reform, social security and global aging are also available at ID21, www.id21.org/society/index.html (and do a subject search for pensions), Eldis, www.eldis.ids.ac.uk/index.htm, The Geneva Association www.genevaassociation.org, the Initiative for Policy Dialogue, www.pensions-policy.org, and The Pension Research Council at prc.wharton.upenn.edu/prc/prc.html.

Pension reports in Latin America and Asia are found via the search engines of their respective regional development banks: the Inter-American Development Bank at www.iadb.org and the Asian Development Bank at www.adb.org. The OECD, www.oecd.org/EN/documents/0,,EN-documents-258-7-no-10-no-0,00.html, offers policy briefs and working papers on pensions, pension funds and development.

Health information by country can be accessed from the World Health Organisation website at www.who.int/whr/2001/main/en/annex/annex1.htm. The WHO Ageing and Life Course Programme, www.who.int/hpr/ageing, offers online papers on policy frameworks, the life course perspective, active ageing and ageing and development. Helpage International, www.helpage.org/publications/publications.html, produces a wide range of newsletters, papers, manuals and reports on ageing issues within a development framework, including practical information on ageing and agecare.

Abstracts from the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) Conference on Ageing, Development and Social Protection which took place in Madrid in April 2002 are available at www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/projects.nsf/(httpProjects)/0D3EDCB8404E
C811C1256BB200377BEE?OpenDocument.

Finally, for information on the United Nations Second Assembly on Ageing, Plans of Action and Political Declarations, check out the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs at www.un.org/esa/socdev/ageing/waa/index.html, the United Nations Second World Assembly on Ageing dedicated website at www.madrid2002-envejecimiento.org and the World NGO Forum on Ageing at www.forumageing.org.

Helena Legido-Quigley
Institute for Development Policy and Management
University of Manchester
UK

helena.legido-quigley@man.ac.uk

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