Honourable Chairman and Delegates

I am very pleased indeed to have the opportunity of presenting to you, the outcomes of the Valencia Forum, referred to in the Secretary General's opening speech as the scientific meeting preceding this World Assembly. I take this opportunity also to further recommend to you the joint UN programme on ageing and International Association of Gerontology project - titled the "Research Agenda on Ageing for the 21 St Century" that was approved during the Valencia Forum for transmission to this Assembly.

We live in times of dramatic and rapid change, development and technological advancement.

In the many fields of endeavour associated with individual and population ageing there is a need, more than at any other time in history, to take account of, and apply, what we know and understand about ageing from a scientific perspective. Science can help us to make the right policy decisions, help us introduce the right programs and take the right steps in the final formulation and implementation of the International Plan of Action on Ageing 2002.

In Valencia we gathered under the auspices of the International Association of Gerontology more than 500 of the World's leading researchers, educators and practitioners in the fields of ageing for the primary purpose of providing you the delegates to this World Assembly with a sound evidence base to support your most important deliberations. The Valencia Report has been distributed for your information and can be further accessed on the web site www.valenciaforum.com

The Forum pointed to the hard evidence linking poverty and health with ageing and proposed possible approaches to dealing with this most fundamental element of the general plight of the human condition across the globe especially in the less and least developed countries and those countries with economies in transition.. A new vision of ageing was proposed that accepts the realities of a fundamental genetically driven bio-molecular process leading to death but with the prosects of achieving healthy, active, productive, successful and positive ageing to the very end through lifestyle modifications and interventions that work. At the same time the real need to provide appropriate, cost effective and quality care and services to those who are in need of them is called for. In addition the Forum laid forth the social and economic trajectories linked to the processes of ageing and the challenges associated with maintaining material well being and necessary support during later life for all citizens. Data on gender issues, the sad realities of elder abuse, social and environmental constraints associated with ageing and the true value of an ageing population were presented among many other key issues. The messages are clear it is for you to take heed of them.

The Research Agenda on Ageing for the 21st Century presented to this Assembly from Valencia is designed to support the International Plan of Action on Ageing. The Research Agenda identifies priorities for research and data collection in order to support the implementation and monitoring of policy actions proposed in the International Plan of Action. Simultaneously, the Research Agenda encourages researchers to pursue studies in policy related areas of ageing where the findings may have practical and realistic applications.

 The Research Agenda has been developed by the United Nations Programme on Ageing together with the International Association of Gerontology and with the support of the Novartis Foundation for Gerontology in a series of expert consultations culminating in its presentation and endorsement during the Valencia Forum.

While this Assembly is unable to adopt a document that has not been subject to the negotiating process I urge the Assembly to accept the Research agenda as the voice of the global research and academic community and to accept its messages and to use it as a powerful tool facilitating the achievement of the objectives of the International Plan of Action 2002.

The major priorities for research exploration specify the most challenging and at the same time most promising priorities for policy related research on ageing to promote the implementation of the International Plan. I refer you to the document that has been distributed and the statement of the President of International Association of Gerontology Dr. Gloria Gutman to this body yesterday setting these out. Again the Research Agenda can be found on the website www.valenciaforumn.com as well, in due course on the IAG web site.www.sfu.ca/iag/

Let me just remind you of the six priorities for policy related research identified in this process:

1) Research into the relationships between population aging and socio-economic development

2) Identification of current practices and options for maintaining material security into old age

3) Research into changing family structures, intergenerational transfer systems and emergent patterns of family and institutional dynamics

4) Research into the determinants of healthy aging

5) Research into the basic biological mechanisms and age associated disease

6) Research into quality of life and aging in diverse cultural, socio-economic and environmental situations

The Agenda elaborates in more detail the critical research arenas derived from thes priorities as well as the methodological issues to be faced and provides a very valuable guide to the development of research priorities on ageing at national levels.

The Research Agenda on ageing is no simple recipe it is intended as a live development process - our horizons will extend, the boundaries of present knowledge and understanding will be breached again and again and so the Research Agenda must continue to take us forward in a continuing quest for more and even sounder knowledge and enlightenment.

Our future lives and those of all coming generations will be profoundly influenced by your capacity here to see beyond the immediate vicissitudes of today and to take us all, in this most universal and fundamental aspect of life, not only to a better life but a truly better life for all ages.