United Nations Programme on Ageing

A/CONF.197/3 and Add.1-5 | 9 | Report of the Commission for Social Development acting as the preparatory committee for the Second World Assembly on Ageing on the work of its second session

A/CONF.197/5 | 8 and 9 | Letter dated 1 April 2002 from the Permanent Representative of Malta addressed to the Secretary-General

A/CONF.197/7 | 8 and 9 | Note verbale dated 9 April 2002 from the Permanent Mission of Azerbaijan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

A/CONF.197/L.3 | 10 | Draft resolution submitted by Venezuela on behalf of the States Members that are members of the Group of 77 and China entitled “Expression of thanks to the people and the Government of Spain

A/CONF.197/MC/L.2 | 9 | Draft resolution submitted by the Chairman of the Main Committee entitled “Political Declaration and International Plan of Action on Ageing, 2002”

Annex II

Opening statements
Remarks by Her Royal Highness Princess Cristina to the Second World Assembly on Ageing

It is my pleasure to address you as a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador to this Second World Assembly on Ageing, an honour which I truly welcome, and one which has provided me with an excellent opportunity to promote awareness of ageing.

I congratulate the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the chairmen and the executive heads of the organizations of the United Nations system on their excellent work, the Chairman and Vice-Chairmen of the Preparatory Committee on their dedication, and the many individuals who have helped to make this Second World Assembly possible.

We are honoured to be hosting this world event in Spain. Our interest stems from our realization that the ageing of the population presents a challenge for which we must prepare ourselves and that we must be ready to take advantage of the abilities of older persons. Therefore, in offering to be the host country, Spain wished to demonstrate its interest in policies for the integration of older persons and to give impetus to an innovative debate in our society.

We are living through a period of major demographic change. The elderly are ever more numerous. That people are living longer and under better conditions, as a result of social progress, is one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

Older persons are a universal force with the potential to transform the future. This global transformation is going to affect individuals, families, communities and virtually every area of society.

Accordingly, we must prepare ourselves for this new challenge by promoting changes in attitude towards this “demographic revolution”, which is taking place because of the increase in the number of older persons in the world.

Achieving “a society for all ages” involves analysing society from a broader perspective and highlights the role played by relations between the various generations making up society. Solidarity between the generations in all areas of family, community and national life is essential for social cohesion.

We younger people must be increasingly aware that, in order to move forward in building a more just society, we must recognize the advances made by older generations and value their experience and current abilities appropriately.

At the same time, we must be able to transmit such values to coming generations. Inter-generational solidarity is a natural setting within which encounter, learning and exchange take place among individuals. It offers advantages to all and helps in achieving a more integrated society.

Together we will build a positive image of ageing, which should involve not simply prolonging life, but also ensuring that old age is healthy, independent, active and fully integrated in society.

Ageing should be seen as a stage in life during which men and women can still develop their skills, as active agents in our societies, in which they should continue to participate as full citizens with full social recognition.

I hope that all the proposals that result from this World Assembly will enable our society to face the challenges posed by the ageing of the population, and that they will be translated into practice by the greatest possible number of countries in such a way that older persons will benefit from them as soon as possible.

In Africa, it is said that when an old man dies, a library vanishes. The proverb may vary among continents, but its meaning is equally true in any culture. Older persons are intermediaries between the past, the present and the future. Their wisdom and experience form a veritable lifeline in society.

We meet today to pay tribute to the contribution of older people and to formulate a strategy to help them lead the safe and dignified lives they deserve. In that sense, this is an Assembly for them.

Let me also pay tribute to Spain for its generosity in holding this Assembly, and for its vision, expertise and leadership in helping us prepare for it.

Twenty years have passed since our predecessors gathered to adopt the first global document to guide policies on ageing. Since then, the world has changed almost beyond recognition. What has not changed is our fundamental objective: building a society fit for all people of all ages.

Today, we have vital and pressing reasons to revisit the issue. The world is undergoing an unprecedented demographic transformation. Between now and 2050, the number of older persons will rise from about 600 million to almost two billion. In less than 50 years from now, for the first time in history, the world will contain more people over 60 than under 15.

Perhaps most important, the increase in the number of older persons will be greatest in developing countries. This is the most important observation. Over the next 50 years, the older population of the developing world is expected to multiply by four.

This is an extraordinary development that bears implications for every community, institution and individual -- young and old. Ageing is definitely no longer just a “first world issue”. What was a footnote in the twentieth century is on its way to becoming a dominant theme in the twenty-first century.

Such a revolution will present enormous challenges in a world already transformed by globalization, migration, and economic change. Let me mention just a few challenges we are already facing today.

• As more and more people move to cities, older persons are losing traditional family support and social networks and are increasingly at risk of marginalization.

• The HIV/AIDS crisis is forcing many older people in developing countries to care for children orphaned by the disease -- of whom there are now more than 13 million worldwide.

• In many developed countries, the concept of cradle-to-grave security is fast disappearing. The shrinking size of the working population means that older people are even more at risk of inadequate pensions and medical attention.

As the older population grows larger, so will these challenges multiply. We need to start preparing for them now. We must devise a plan of action on ageing, adapted to the realities of the twenty-first century. Let me mention some overriding objectives.

We need to recognize that, as more people are better educated, live longer and stay healthy longer, older persons can and do make greater contributions to society than ever before. By promoting their active participation in society and development, we can ensure that their invaluable gifts and experience are put to good use. Older persons who can work and want to should have the opportunity to do so; and all people should have the opportunity to continue learning throughout life.

By creating support networks and enabling environments, we can engage the wider community in strengthening solidarity between generations and in combating abuse, violence, disrespect and discrimination against older people.

By providing adequate and affordable health care, including preventive health measures, we can help older people maintain their independence for as long as possible.

The past 20 years have brought a wealth of new opportunities that should help us achieve those objectives.

New international commitments have been reached in the conferences of the 1990s, culminating in the Millennium development goals. Taken together, these form a blueprint for improving people’s lives. Building better lives for the older persons must form an integral part of that agenda.

A good global revolution that has taken place is the use of information technology and the empowerment of civil society. This enables us to build the partnerships needed to achieve a society for all ages. While Governments have the primary responsibility towards their older populations, they need to work through effective coalitions engaging all actors: from non-governmental organizations to the private sector, from international organizations to educators and health professionals, and of course, associations of older people themselves. And I hope you will also send a wider message to the world: that older people are not a category apart. We will all grow old one day -- if we have that luck.

We have been given some wonderful opportunities to strengthen those partnerships -- let me suggest the issue of partnerships. We have to strengthen the partnerships I mentioned earlier, in connection with this World Assembly on Ageing -- through the parallel NGO Forum here in Madrid and the international scientific forum just ended in Valencia. We can strengthen these partnerships. Again, let me thank the Spanish Government, the Spanish civil society, for helping us to make this happen.

Given the challenges and opportunities before us, I trust you will make every effort to conclude successfully the negotiations on the outcome document before this Assembly.

And as we do so, I hope we send a wider message that older people, as I said earlier, are not a category apart. We will all grow old one day -- if we have that privilege, that is. Let us therefore look at older persons not as people separate from ourselves, but as our future selves. And let us recognize that older people are all individuals, with individual needs and strengths, not a group that are all the same because of their age.

Finally, that brings me to a confession I’d like to make to you this morning. I turned 64 today. I therefore feel empowered to quote a Beatles’ song that asks, on behalf of all older persons, and I quote: Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?

I trust the answer is yes, older people will be provided for, and yes, older people will be needed in the twenty-first century.

Statement by José María Aznar, President of the Government of Spain and President of the Second World Assembly on Ageing

Welcome to Spain. We Spaniards feel especially honoured by your presence and by the fact that you have chosen to discuss and adopt, in our nation, a plan of action that I hope will mark a historic landmark and serve as a reference for future decision-making on the issues that we are about to address.

There were many reasons for the Spanish Government to offer Spain as a venue for this global event.

In the first place, it is a sign of the active role that our country wishes to play in international forums where discussion and work take place aimed at solving social problems of general interest.
Through our offer, Spain also wishes to contribute directly to enriching the debate that has arisen from the process of population ageing that many countries are experiencing and the consequences that it may have in the most diverse spheres of our societies.
Finally, because we are convinced that, by hosting this event, we shall learn from the experience of countries that have lived through our present situation and, at the same time, we shall enable other countries with younger populations to anticipate the times that they may possibly face.

Since the last World Assembly on Ageing, which was held in Vienna in 1982, the demographic structure of most of our countries has changed considerably and the ageing of our populations has made even more rapid advances than had been expected.

In the least developed countries, although it is not strictly possible to talk about “ageing”, some symptoms are beginning to be observed that enable us to predict a major transformation in their populations.

In the developed countries, we have been witnessing an increase in the proportion of older people relative to the population as a whole for a number of years, while at the same time it is seen that our older people, fortunately, live increasingly longer. In the European countries, the so-called “old continent”, we have long experience in this connection.

It is natural, therefore, that we, and especially the countries that still have young populations, should ask ourselves, whether ageing is a negative thing that should be avoided or whether, on the contrary, it holds positive and hopeful messages.

The first thing I have to say is that I do not have an unequivocal or simple reply. In life, age is not in itself either good or bad, just as childhood is not in itself either good or bad. Teenagers would like to have the wisdom and experience of adults, and this constitutes the freshness and excitement of youth.

In the population of a country, ageing also has positive aspects and others that are perhaps not so positive.

The ageing of a population with an adequate birth rate that is moving towards a balanced population is not the same thing as the ageing of a society that endangers the passing on of the baton to the next generation, as well as its own subsistence.

The ageing of a population motivated by the free and responsible adjustment of families to new living conditions is not the same thins as ageing that takes place as the result of population loss caused by war, forced exile or a terrible epidemic such as AIDS.

There can be no doubt that population-ageing is a complex process which has many causes, and many different consequences.

Independently of how it may be considered, ageing is already “a fact” for many of us -- a new and undeniable phenomenon that requires profound changes and resolute responses on the part of all of society’s structures and institutions.

I am of the opinion that institutions in general, and Governments in particular, must be realistic and adapt our actions to what people decide freely and responsibly, rather than trying to influence their decisions in order to make them fit in to a model that we, perhaps in a logical and orderly manner, have planned beforehand. However, we still are responsible for acting, above all through education and social policies, to ensure that individual conduct will, in a natural way, incorporate civic behaviour imbued with a spirit of solidarity. This is not only on account of the need for a social pact that makes harmonious living possible, but above all because it is through civic behaviour that people fully develop their humanity and find the true quality of life.

When we see that in our societies, life is not respected, that the family is not valued, that children are not wanted and that old people are not cared for, then we know that something is not right. It is then that we have to act decisively because the problem is not that our society has grown old, but rather that it is weak or infirm.

The challenge facing many countries is that of adapting our society to this new reality, while anticipating the possible negative effects deriving from ageing, and at the same time removing the obstacles that can impede its balanced and harmonious development.

As proposed to us by the motto of this Assembly, we need to collectively generate a cultural change that allows for the creation of “societies for all ages”, in which neither older people, nor any other person, on account of sex, health, race or religion, feels excluded.

At the present time the mental faculties of a 60-year old are the same as those of a middle-aged person some years ago. This new circumstance is evidence of the important role that older people can continue to play in the professions, in politics, in social life or in intellectual and cultural training.

Countries with older populations must increasingly promote “active ageing” through policies of preventive medicine, continued learning and a flexible work schedule. All that, apart from making good use of the human potential of older people, will help to meet the possible costs deriving from the new population structure.

A country that fails to offer opportunities for active participation to its older people is a country that is missing opportunities. But it is, above all, a country that is preventing many useful and capable people from continuing to contribute to the well-being of others as well as bringing a sense of satisfaction to their own lives. It is not so much a matter of “making them feel useful” as of convincing ourselves that they really are useful, and of allowing them to prove it.

Our society needs to recognize the role that older people have played throughout their lives, and can still play. They must be recognized for what they can still do, but above all, for what they themselves are. That is because older people, like any other people, healthy or sick, rather than “being useful” are “worth” something.

That is why the family is such an important institution. It is because it is in families, and through the inter-generational relations that are found in families, based on affection, freely offered, that we mainly learn to appreciate people, whether old or young, healthy or ill, for what they themselves are.

That is why it is so important that Governments acknowledge, facilitate and reward this work that families are doing in a way that is disinterested but clearly to the benefit of society as a whole. That is why it is so important for Governments to collaborate, by providing them with the necessary help for the care and attention of older people and ensuring that they will have access to the services of all kinds that will help them in their task.

Apart from ensuring the perfect integration of the rapidly growing older population into society, the countries that are addressing such processes have to anticipate the effects that ageing has on their economic, social and health policies.

As many of those present know, Spain currently hold the Presidency of the European Union Council. In my capacity as President of this Council, I can assure you that the ageing of the European population and all the economic and social changes that this process involves, are reflected directly or indirectly in many of the priority courses of action that we are promoting.

It would be desirable if not only the European countries but all the countries that are gathered here were to recognize the depth of the changes that are taking place and were to react in a responsible way, cooperating under United Nations auspices in order to transform these new challenges into opportunities for assuring the integral development of our societies.

I wish to thank the United Nations, and all those who have collaborated in making this Assembly possible, for the opportunity that you have given us by bringing us together to discuss an issue of such importance. I am sure that approval, with a wide margin of consensus, of the International Plan of Action will serve as a guide for our policies in the coming decades.

Annex III

The programme of activities organized in conjunction with the Second World Assembly on Ageing included a series of events that took place before and during the Assembly. In chronological order, the first event was the Valencia Forum, followed by the NGO Forum on Ageing, the round tables programme, Dialogues 2002, and a series of activities promoted by agencies of the United Nations system, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, Member States and the private sector.

The Valencia Forum was held from 1 to 4 April 2002 in Valencia. Research and academic professionals gathered over four days and discussed the research issues related to policy development in the field of ageing and adopted the Research Agenda on ageing for the Twenty-first Century to support implementation of the Plan of Action. With more than 500 participants, this scientific congress gave an important and substantive input to the general discussion on ageing issues during the Assembly. The organizer of the event read a report before the Member States at the plenary on the main findings and developments of the Forum.

The NGO Forum on Ageing began on 5 April and overlapped with the Assembly, finishing on 9 April. A Coordinating NGO Committee, which integrated both national and international NGOs, convened and organized this international NGO gathering. The IFEMA building, adjacent to the Assembly venue, hosted more than 3,000 participants from five continents. During the four sessions they worked intensively in 170 workshops and panels. The Secretary-General visited the Forum and gave a speech at the plenary session on 9 April. At the end of the NGO Forum, one of the co-chairs addressed the Assembly and read a summary of the conclusions reached among the NGO representatives at the Forum.

Dialogues 2020 was the name of a round table programme organized by the Spanish Government. The programme started on 8 April and ran in parallel to the meetings of the Assembly. There were eight round tables on different topics including: poverty eradication, active ageing and family issues. Among the speakers, were some heads of funds and programmes of the United Nations system, high-level government representatives and members of the leading research and education community, as well as representatives of civil society.

The side events included eight activities organized by United Nations system organizations, such as the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Regional organizations were also present in these international events: the Inter-American Development Bank and the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) had their own panels. In addition, five private companies, organizers of five events, represented the private sector. Finally, several Member States as well as a group of international non-governmental organizations, alone and in association with Member States, hosted 18 panels, workshops and round tables in parallel to the Assembly.

Report of the Second World Assembly on Ageing Madrid, 8-12 April 2002 United Nations New York, 2002

Annex I

Annex II

Annex III

Report of the Second World Assembly on Ageing

Madrid, 8-12 April 2002 United Nations
New York, 2002