This paper: examines long-term care (LTC) protection in 46 developing and developed countries covering 80 per cent of the world’s population; provides (data on LTC coverage for the population aged 65+; identifies access deficits for older persons due to the critical shortfall of formal LTC workers; presents the impacts of insufficient public funding, the reliance on unpaid informal LTC workers and high out-of-pocket payments (OOP); and calls for recognizing LTC as a right, and mainstreaming LTC as a priority in national policy agendas given the benefits in terms of job creation and improved welfare of the population.