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Overview
Global Action on Aging
advocates at the United Nations (UN) in New York to build a better
society for older people across the globe. Older persons’ numbers are
increasing rapidly. One out of every ten persons is now 60 years or above;
by 2050, one out of five will be 60 years or older. UN Member States
correctly see this growth among the elderly as a tremendous economic and
social challenge for their countries and the world. At the same time,
governments agree with Global Action on Aging that the world’s elderly
offer great talent and energy to their nations and our world.
In April 2002, delegates of 160 governments, intergovernmental institutions
and NGOs came together at the United Nations Second
World Assembly on Ageing in Madrid, Spain, in order to revise the 1982
Vienna Plan on Ageing which had established a global long-term
strategy for the aging population.
The 2002 Assembly’s outcome document, the Madrid
International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA) , commits governments
to integrate the rights and needs of older persons into national, as well as
international, economic and social development policies.
However, this MIPAA document is non-binding and UN Member States may choose
to implement the Plan or not. Many millions of vulnerable old people, in
both the developed and developing world, still experience abuse, poverty and
social exclusion today. The rights of older people need to be better defined
and protected. Global Action on Aging believes that an Aging Human Rights
Convention (or Treaty), if adopted, promises a better world for older
persons.
This Aging Watch section monitors reports and decisions of the UN system,
with regard to the follow-up of MIPAA and the process toward the adoption of
a UN Convention protecting the rights of older persons.
To read some background documents on aging at the United Nations,
click here.
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Newest Updates
Argentina: To Attain the Full Exercise of the Rights of Older Persons (May 28, 2009)
(Article in Spanish)
Argentina hosted the “Second Meeting on the Follow-up of the Brasilia Declaration” on May 21st and 22nd. At the invitation of the Argentine Ministry of Social Development, representatives from 22 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean convened for this important meeting. They discussed important goals for any aging rights document, including full and effective participation and inclusion of older persons in society, equality of opportunities, the recognition of the links and commonalities among people that draw them together as members of a shared community. Interestingly, Argentina raised the issue of older persons in an international setting for the first time in 1948 as an initiative of Eva Duarte de Perón, when she addressed the General Assembly Meeting of the United Nations.
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World: Report of Susanne Paul from the Expert Group Meeting on “Older Persons’ Rights” in Bonn, Germany (May 4-7, 2009)
(Report also available in Spanish,
French, Russian,
Chinese, and Arabic)
Susanne Paul, President of Global Action on Aging, reports on the Expert Group Meeting on “Older Persons’ Rights” in Bonn, Germany. The UN’s Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) invited Susanne and over a dozen other experts to participate in sessions exploring the state of older persons’ rights. The group shared good national practices to protect older people’s rights, tools that would build capacity in governments and organizations to assure human rights, as well as ideas about how to guarantee rights of older people through UN institutions. The experts debated whether a Human Rights Convention or a Special Rapporteur could insure older people’s rights. Susanne also served as a co-rapporteur. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon may draw on the ideas from this meeting in his opening address to the UN General Assembly in September. To see the picture gallery from Bonn, click
here.
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General Assembly
Secretariat
ECOSOC
UN Funds and Programs
Conventions
NGOs
Focal
Points on Aging
The
UN Secretariat Building
in New York, US
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