🇿🇦 South Africa Ageing, Long-Term Care & Community Support Knowledge Hub

South Africa is experiencing important demographic and social change as population ageing, longer lives, chronic illness, disability, inequality and changing family structures reshape the support needs of older people. Long-term support spans families and unpaid carers, community organisations, social protection, healthcare, home and community services, residential care and private provision, with substantial differences in access and resources between communities. The first collection within this Knowledge Hub explores South Africa Ageing, Long-Term Care & Community Support, with additional specialist collections being introduced as the library expands.

South Africa provides an important case study in how ageing and long-term care interact with wider questions of inequality, social protection, health system capacity and community resilience. The Older Persons Act provides an important framework for the protection and support of older people, while everyday care continues to depend heavily on families, communities and a mixed landscape of formal and informal services.

Key challenges include supporting family caregivers, improving access to affordable home and community support, addressing rural and urban inequalities, strengthening residential care, developing the care workforce, improving dementia and disability support, safeguarding older people and connecting healthcare more effectively with longer-term social and community support.

This Knowledge Hub examines South Africa’s approach to population ageing, long-term care, social grants, family caregiving, community-based support, residential care, disability, dementia, mental health, workforce development, safeguarding, health and social care integration, rehabilitation, palliative care, quality assurance, housing, technology and sustainable system development. It forms part of the interconnected international knowledge library across Impact Guru and Impact Insights Hub, supporting comparison between care systems while recognising their distinct social, economic and institutional contexts.

As the collection develops, the focus will remain on how South Africa can strengthen sustainable, accessible and person-centred support while recognising the continuing importance of families and communities. This requires attention not only to formal service capacity, but also to prevention, workforce capability, household resilience, safeguarding, quality, evidence and the participation of older people and people with disabilities.

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