Excellencies,
Distinguished colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you, Mr. Rundlet, for your welcoming remarks.
Let me begin by thanking our co-host, AARP for its long-standing role in advocating with Governments, businesses and NGOs to champion the interests of older persons. We welcome you all to our 14th joint AARP/DESA briefing series. We are happy to co-sponsor this year’s event with the Permanent Mission of Mexico, which is a champion member of the “Digital Inclusion and Data” roundtable to follow-up on the Report of the High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation. We also welcome the partnership of the International Communications Union and the United Nations Independent Expert on the human rights of older persons.
Our meeting today is timely, coming just before the Commission for Social Development begins its 59th session. We have several busy days ahead. The COVID-19 pandemic is having a dramatic impact on social development, threatening to reverse decades of progress in the fight against poverty and exacerbating already high levels of inequality. This has compromised the well-being of too many, including older persons.
This session of the Commission for Social Development provides Member States the platform to rethink existing socio-economic policy frameworks to build forward better after the pandemic, and to examine closely the key role that digital technologies can and should play.
We are on the verge of a fourth industrial revolution characterized by rapid digital innovation. This will affect all sectors of society—the way we live, work, and relate to each other. We need the right policies, grounded on evidence and data from both the public and private sector, to make sure that this process is inclusive of all, including older persons.
We know from available evidence that older persons experience the downsides of the digital divide to a greater extent than many other groups of society, and this means that older persons often do not benefit fully from the opportunities provided by technological progress.
As digital technologies become more and more ingrained in everyday life, the reach of the impact of digital exclusion will widen. This may take the form of one not been able to retain or find employment because of insufficient knowledge of new digital tools, or adverse health as a result of inadequate access to the platforms and technologies that healthcare providers are using more and more. It can also mean not being aware of, or able to fully access, essential public services which are increasingly only being offered online.
Understanding how and to what extent such changes will affect older persons is a pre-condition for us to accelerate their integration.
The dangers of gender- or race-based bias and discrimination in the use of artificial intelligence have been well-researched and -documented. But little comparable information and analysis exists with regard to older persons. We need to know what biases against older persons already exist in artificial intelligence. We need to understand better how such biases compound the pervasive effects of age discrimination in our societies, how they can exacerbate the exclusion of older people and the negative effects of the digital divide. We also need to guard against and prevent new biases that could shape a system that discriminates against older persons.
To tackle these issues, older persons and their needs have to be explicitly addressed in all relevant decisions at all levels. The ethical frameworks on artificial intelligence that are being developed by companies and Governments around the world must be formulated in full awareness of the challenges and opportunities of these new technologies for older persons, particularly when addressing issues that are of importance to older persons such as technology for age care.
Addressing data gaps is crucial. Without adequate age-disaggregated data, it is difficult for us to fully understand and therefore address the digital divide. We need to integrate the consideration of age – including old age – in every effort on digital inclusion and ensure that the data we use enable this.
Finally, we need to be forward looking. There is much that we do not know about how the digital revolution will unfold, how its potential will crystalize in two or three decades. But we do know what the world is going to look like in terms of age distribution in the future.
The world’s population is growing older. Virtually every country in the world is experiencing growth in the size and proportion of older persons in their population, and the countries expected to witness the largest relative increase in the number of older people are mainly in less developed regions. By 2050 one in six people in the world will be aged 65 years or over, up from one in 11 in 2019.
If we want a better and more inclusive future, we need to push the agenda of older persons in digital technologies further. Ensuring that older persons are equal participants of technological progress is not simply about empowering them through these new tools, but also about fully utilizing the potential and expertise of persons of all ages, including older persons, to enrich the digital world.
I am confident that this event is a stepping-stone in that direction, and I look forward to your ideas.
Thank you.