Follow-Up to the 2nd World Assembly on Ageing

Invites Member States to continue to share their national experiences in developing and implementing policies and programmes aimed at strengthening the promotion and protection of the human rights of older persons, including within the framework of the Open-ended Working Group on Ageing established by the General Assembly in paragraph 28 of its resolution 65/182;

Encourages all Member States to be mindful of the reports of the Independent Expert, including the comprehensive report to be brought to the attention of the Working Group;

Encourages Governments to actively address issues that affect older persons and to ensure that the social integration of older persons and the promotion and protection of their rights form an integral part of development policies at all levels;

Invites Member States to adopt and implement non-discriminatory policies and to systematically review and amend, where appropriate, existing practices and regulations that discriminate against older persons, in order to promote an enabling environment for older persons;

Encourages Member States to address the issue of discrimination on the basis of age in relevant national legislation and to take appropriate measures to prevent discrimination against older persons;

Encourages Governments to pay greater attention to building capacity to eradicate poverty among older persons, in particular older women, by mainstreaming ageing issues into poverty eradication, women’s empowerment strategies and national development plans, and to include both ageing-specific policies and ageing-mainstreaming efforts in their national strategies;

Encourages Member States to strengthen their efforts to develop national capacity to address their national implementation priorities identified during the review and appraisal of the Madrid Plan of Action, and invites Member States that have not done so to consider a step-by-step approach to developing capacity that includes the setting of national priorities, the strengthening of institutional mechanisms, research, data collection and analysis and the training of necessary personnel in the field of ageing;

Also encourages Member States to overcome obstacles to the implementation of the Madrid Plan of Action by devising strategies that take into account the entirety of the human life course and foster intergenerational solidarity in order to increase the likelihood of greater success in the years ahead;

Further encourages Member States to place particular emphasis on choosing national priorities that are realistic, sustainable and feasible and have the greatest likelihood of being achieved in the years ahead and to develop targets and indicators to measure progress in the implementation process;

Invites Member States to identify key priority areas for implementation of the Madrid Plan of Action, including empowering older persons and promoting their rights, raising awareness of ageing issues and building national capacity to address ageing;

Recommends that Member States increase efforts to raise awareness of the Madrid Plan of Action, including by promoting and supporting initiatives to advance a positive public image of older persons and their multiple contributions to their families, communities and societies and by working with the regional commissions and enlisting the help of the Department of Public Information of the Secretariat in seeking increased attention for ageing issues;

Encourages Governments that have not done so to designate focal points for handling the follow-up of national plans of action on ageing, and also encourages Governments to strengthen existing networks of national focal points on ageing;

Invites Governments to conduct their ageing-related policies through inclusive and participatory consultations with relevant stakeholders and social development partners, in the interest of developing effective policies that create national policy ownership and consensus-building;

Recommends that Member States enhance their capacity to more effectively collect data, statistics and qualitative information, disaggregated when necessary by relevant factors, including sex and disability, in order to better assess the situation of older persons and to set adequate monitoring mechanisms for programmes and policies geared towards protecting the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by older persons;

Recommends that States parties to existing international human rights instruments, where appropriate, address the situation of older persons more explicitly in their reports, and encourages treaty body monitoring mechanisms and special procedures mandate holders, in accordance with their mandates, to pay more attention to the situation of older persons in their dialogue with Member States, in their consideration of reports or in their country missions;

Encourages Governments to continue their efforts to implement the Madrid Plan of Action and to mainstream the concerns of older persons into their policy agendas, bearing in mind the crucial importance of intergenerational family interdependence, solidarity and reciprocity for social development and the realization of all human rights for older persons, and to prevent age discrimination and provide social integration;

Encourages Member States to adopt social policies that promote the development of community services for older persons, taking into account the psychological and physical aspects of ageing and the special needs of older women;

Also encourages Member States to ensure that older persons have access to information about their rights so as to enable them to participate fully and justly in their societies and to claim full enjoyment of all human rights;

Calls upon Member States to develop their national capacity for monitoring and enforcing the rights of older persons, in consultation with all sectors of society, including organizations of older persons, through, inter alia, national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights, where applicable;

Also calls upon Member States to strengthen and incorporate a gender and disability perspective into all policy actions on ageing, as well as to address and eliminate discrimination on the basis of age, sex or disability, and recommends that Member States engage with all sectors of society, in particular with relevant organizations with an interest in the matter, including organizations of older persons, women and persons with disabilities, in changing negative stereotypes about older persons, in particular older women and older persons with disabilities, and promote positive images of older persons;

Urges Member States to develop, implement and evaluate policies and programmes that promote healthy and active ageing and the highest attainable standard of health and well-being for older persons and to develop health care for older persons as part of primary care in the existing national health systems;

Urges Member States to strengthen intersectoral policy frameworks and institutional mechanisms, as appropriate, for the integrated management of the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, including health promotion, health care and social welfare services, in order to address the needs of older persons;

Calls upon Member States to address the issue of the well-being and adequate health care of older persons, as well as any cases of neglect, abuse and violence against older persons, by designing and implementing more effective prevention strategies and stronger laws and by developing coherent and comprehensive policy frameworks to address these problems and their underlying factors;

Also calls upon Member States to take concrete measures to further protect and assist older persons in emergency situations, in accordance with the Madrid Plan of Action;

Encourages Member States to ensure that the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of age is incorporated and upheld in health policies and programmes and that the implementation of such policies and programmes is regularly monitored;

Also encourages Member States to adopt and enforce guidelines that establish standards for the provision of long-term support and assistance to older persons;

Recommends that Governments involve older persons and their organizations in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes that affect them;

Encourages the international community, including international and bilateral donors, to enhance international cooperation to support national efforts to eradicate poverty, in keeping with internationally agreed goals, in order to achieve sustainable and adequate social and economic support for older persons, while bearing in mind that countries have the primary responsibility for their own economic and social development;

Encourages the international community to support national efforts to forge stronger partnerships with civil society, including organizations of older persons, academia, research foundations, community-based organizations, including caregivers, and the private sector, in an effort to help to build capacity on ageing issues;

Encourages the international community and the relevant agencies of the United Nations system, within their respective mandates, to support national efforts to provide funding for research and data-collection initiatives on ageing, as appropriate, in order to better understand the challenges and opportunities presented by population ageing and to provide policymakers with more accurate and more specific information with regard to a gender perspective on ageing;

Recommends that Member States reaffirm the role of United Nations focal points on ageing, increase technical cooperation efforts, expand the role of the regional commissions on ageing issues and continue to provide resources for those efforts, facilitate the coordination of national and international non-governmental organizations on ageing and enhance cooperation with academia on a research agenda on ageing;

Requests the United Nations system to strengthen its capacity to support, in an efficient and coordinated manner, national implementation of the Madrid Plan of Action, where appropriate;

Requests relevant entities of the United Nations system, including the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), to ensure that the situation of older women is mainstreamed and incorporated across their work;

Recommends that the situation of older persons be taken into account in the ongoing efforts to achieve the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the United Nations Millennium Declaration;⁷

Calls upon Member States to continue to contribute to the work of the Working Group, in particular by presenting concrete proposals, practical measures, best practices and lessons learned that will contribute to promoting and protecting the rights and dignity of older persons, in order to enable it to fulfil its mandate;

Requests the Working Group to submit to the General Assembly at its seventieth session a compilation of the above-mentioned proposals and measures;

Invites relevant bodies and organizations of the United Nations system, including relevant human rights mandate holders and treaty bodies and the regional commissions, as well as intergovernmental and relevant non-governmental organizations with an interest in the matter, to continue to make contributions to the work entrusted to the Working Group, as appropriate;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to provide all necessary support to the Working Group, within existing resources, for the organization of a sixth working session, in 2015;

Invites the Independent Expert to address and engage in an interactive dialogue with the General Assembly at its seventieth session under the item entitled “Social development”;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its seventieth session a report on the implementation of the present resolution.