 |
Search : | ||
|
|||
News
|
News stories
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
9 April 2002 by Eva Calvo, in Madrid The first World Assembly on Ageing to take place in 20 years and only the second one of its kind, the five-day meeting was officially opened by her Royal Highness, the Infanta Doña Cristina, followed by speeches by UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan and Spanish Prime Minister, José Maria Aznar. Annan stressed the challenge of building a society that was fit for people of all ages and urged the role of older people in society not to be undervalued. "In Africa, it is said that when an old man dies, a library vanishes," he said, linking older people between the past, the present and the future. Delegates from UN agencies, NGOs, international organisations and government representatives, will examine issues such as health, poverty, violence and discrimination during the assembly. The aim by the end of the week is to formulate an international plan of action on ageing across the globe. The UN Secretary General, to whom more than 300 participants at a parallel Non Governmental Organisations' (NGO) forum on ageing, later sang "happy birthday" as he celebrated his 64th birthday, warned that if the issue of ageing was not well managed, it would create enormous social and economic problems for governments, humanitarian organisations and NGOs. Quoting a line from a Beatles song, "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?", Kofi Annan said new ways of "using the experiences, creativity and knowledge of older people" had to be found. Speaking on behalf of civil society at the NGO forum, the President of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Don Juan Manuel Suàrez del Toro, reiterated the commitment to fight discrimination against older people. In addition, he said, older people's rights to care, independence, participation in society, self-fulfilment and dignity had to be promoted and respected. "Older people have to participate in the social, economic and political life of their communities," Suàrez del Toro told the gathering. "We must listen to older people and ensure that their views are taken into account and recognise their important role as a resourceful and productive force." And it was the need to ensure that older people are not neglected in the HIV/AIDS pandemic that the International Federation President stressed at a round table discussion on "Active Ageing: A global objective for health policies", on the second day of the World Assembly. "At a time when they expected to be taken care of by their children, older people have now become the care givers for their sick and dying adult children. Of the many million children across the world who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS, the majority are cared for by grandparents," he said. It has become essential, as a result, to ensure that older people have access to material, psychological and social support, he added. The concept of Active Ageing under discussion at the round table, which included Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director General of WHO and Peter Sherer of the OECD as panellists, is based on enhancing the quality of life for older people by optimizing opportunities in health, participation in society and security. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
