The 2022 Ministerial Conference on Ageing will review states’ commitments as part of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA). We have submitted our contribution including a number of recommendations on key issues to improve the protection of older people’s human rights.
The Ministerial Conference “A sustainable World for All Ages – Joining forces for solidarity and equal opportunities throughout life” will be organised from 16 to 17 June 2022 by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in cooperation with the Italian government.
The event will also mark the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the MIPAA.
As we are preparing for the Rome conference on the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing, we have delivered a policy report, building on the work done together with our members in the past five years. It includes the three editions of the AGE Barometer, to assess the progress in the different policy areas of MIPAA.
Need for coordinated ageing policies
As explained in our report shows, policies on ageing fail to respect, protect and promote all human rights for older persons. These policies are often disconnected, sometimes contradictory, and are lacking indicators to measure the quality of life of older persons in their diversity.We therefore call for a comprehensive international framework to address those gaps. In particular, we ask Ministers to make sure that the next Regional Implementation Strategy will:
- put older persons as rights-holders at the centre of the next Regional Implementation Strategy;
- call on states to engage in the process actively and positively towards an international convention on the rights of older persons;
- call for an EU level and national Age Equality Strategies;
- to call for investment into the quality, affordability and accessibility of long-term care and transform long-term care into a setting to live and strive;
- to adapt statistical frameworks to the reality of increasing longevity and diversity in older age; and
- to call for the inclusion of older persons as users and co-creators of digital services, and for the offline availability of all essential services.
We have addressed this report and the letter to the delegations attending the ministerial conference, the social attachés in Member States’ Permanent Representations to the EU, the members of the Standing Working Group on Ageing as well as key stakeholders in the European Commission and the European External Action Service.
