Amplifying older persons as partners for inclusive policy change.

 Governments should work with older persons to deliver the SDGs by including them in national and sub-national SDG strategies and budgets, alongside delivering commitments made in the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and activities related to the ongoing UN Decade of Healthy Ageing. Local and regional governments (LRGs) are uniquely positioned to enable the meaningful participation of older persons as partners in achieving the SDGs. As the sphere of government closest to people’s daily lives, LRGs are responsible for delivering many of the public services that most directly affect older persons—such as health, care, social protection, transport, housing and disaster response. Their proximity to communities enables more inclusive, participatory and age responsive governance. Recognising and equipping LRGs as key actors in engaging older persons ensures that SDG implementation is not only rights-based but rooted in real-life experience and co-creation at the local level alongside older people themselves. Working effectively with older people at the local level requires high quality, timely, disaggregated data across multiple dimensions and inclusive national-level indicators and targets relevant to older persons and for them to be included in Voluntary National and Local Reviews (VNRs/VLRs) and other mechanisms that monitor progress. Older persons and civil society organisations that represent them stand ready to engage with governments and other stakeholders – including sub-national government, the private sector, academia and others – to inform and achieve this change. Success in SDG delivery means building meaningful partnerships with older persons at all levels, removing barriers to participation, dispelling negative and ageist stereotypes, and ensuring the inclusion of all older persons, including those with intersecting identities and characteristics that exacerbate the age-based discrimination they face. 

Actions for governments to ensure the structural participation of older persons in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes that impact their lives:

 1. Include the voices of older persons through participation and consultation in planning, implementation and monitoring of national and subnational government policies and initiatives that reflect a strong commitment to upholding the rights of older persons.

2. Work with civil society organisations and other groups representing older persons, including community-based Older People’s Associations, Older Citizens Monitoring Groups and Intergenerational Self-Help Groups, as well as National Platforms, Regional and Global Ageing Networks, as key stakeholders and drivers of change.

3. Actively include older women in decisionmaking processes and programmes aimed at gender equality and remove barriers to participation in the labour market, leadership and governance roles at all levels. 

4. Ensure planning, implementation and monitoring of responses to humanitarian crises are age and disability inclusive and gender transformative, recognising the disproportionate impact on older persons so that communities are resilient. 

Actions for a policy environment that enables age inclusive delivery of SDGs:

 5. Mainstream age and disability inclusion and gender equality across the life course throughout all government departments, planning and policies. 

6. Count everyone, of all ages, through high quality, timely sex, age and disability disaggregated data and inclusive national SDG indicators and targets informed by traditional data sources (censuses, civil registration and vital statistics, administrative records, surveys), and new sources and technologies (integration of geospatial information with statistics and other data, mobile devices, earth observations, social media, citizengenerated data) and improved national statistical systems that integrate citizengenerated data to address LNOB gaps. 

7. Mobilise resources that support the structural participation and engagement of older persons and deliver transformative, age, disability and gender responsive initiatives to achieve the SDGs.

Related Goals