(1) The International Day of Older Persons will be commemorated on October 1, 2009. This year's theme is "Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the International Year of Older Persons: Towards a Society for All Ages". For more information, including the message of the UN Secretary-General and programmes of events in New York and Geneva, please direct your Internet server to: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/ageing/un_meetings.html

(2) Rosemary Lane was appointed acting focal point on ageing on 1 September 2009 upon the retirement of Alexandre Sidorenko who held this position since the late 1980s. Rosemary has worked on ageing issues for a number of years and worked with Dr. Sidorenko through the International Year of Older Persons 1999 and the Second World Assembly on Ageing in 2002. Sasha Sidorenko joined the UN Secretariat in 1988 in Vienna and moved to New York in 1993. His major responsibilities included coordination of UN activities in the area of demographic ageing, including the promotion and monitoring of international policies and programmes in this field. He was responsible for the substantive preparations for the Second World Assembly on Ageing in Madrid, Spain. Afterwards, his principle tasks included follow-up to and monitoring of the implementation of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and development of evidence-based policy on ageing.

(3) The International Training Centre of the ILO will be holding its annual two-week course on "Extension of Social protection: towards a universal social protection floor" from November 2-13, 2009 in Turin, Italy. This year, the course will look at the horizontal and vertical dimensions from which a country can tackle the extension of protection coverage to its population. The horizontal dimension will cover the adoption of a social protection floor aiming at providing a universal minimum set of social protection benefits at country level, so that the poor and the most vulnerable populations are covered. The vertical dimension will address the improvements/safeguard of minimum benefit entitlements in the formal and formalizing sectors. Guided discussions will cover important elements such as financing, examples of successful initiatives, different mechanisms, fiscal and institutional conditions. Registration must be sent to sopro@itcilo.org.

Le Centre international de formation de l'OIT tiendra son cours annuel de deux semaines sur "L'extension de la protection sociale: vers un socle de la protection sociale" du 23 novembre au 4 décembre, 2009 à Turin en Italie. Cette année, le cours sur l’extension de la protection sociale traitera des dimensions horizontale et verticale par lesquelles un pays peut aborder l’extension de la couverture offerte à la population. La dimension horizontale consiste en l’adoption d’un socle de protection sociale visant à assurer un ensemble minimal de prestations au niveau national. Elle a pour but de garantir la protection sociale pour les individus pauvres et les plus vulnérables. La dimension verticale concerne l’amélioration et la préservation des prestations minimales dans les secteurs formel et en cours de formalisation. Les discussions couvriront des éléments importants tels que le financement, les initiatives ayant eu du succès, divers mécanismes, les conditions fiscales et institutionnelles. S'enregistrer à la formation en envoyant le formulaire de nomination et la lettre de nomination de l'institution à socpro@itcilo.org avant le 20 octobre 2009.