1999 International Year of the Older Persons

By the year 2050, the population of Asia and the Pacific is projected to reach 5.7 billion, more than half of the world’s total, and the number of older persons in the region is expected to come close to 60 per cent of the world’s older persons.

The 1994 Manila Declaration and Agenda for Action on Social Development in the ESCAP region calls for efforts to bring the active older persons into the development stream and meet the basic needs of the rural and urban elderly who lack social security. Supportive action is also called for in ESCAP resolution 54/5, International Year of Older Persons: Towards a society for all ages.

In response to these mandates, ESCAP Secretariat undertook several activities, including the holding of a “Regional Workshop on Economic and Financial Implications for Ageing Societies”, which was hosted by the Philippines in Manila in February 2000. Earlier, in June 1997, ESCAP had convened a   Regional Seminar on Government-NGO Cooperation for Older Persons which was held in Macau.

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