A report prepared by officials from the industrialised countries of Europe, North America and Japan says western governments need to take urgent measures to prepare for the financial burden of elderly populations.

The figures released at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington suggest that the proportion of elderly people over sixty-five will more than double to fifty per-cent by two-thousand and thirty.

The report says governments will need tighter limits on public spending, encourage savings for old age and provide greater supervision of financial markets to deal with the capital generated from those savings.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service