Older persons transforming SDG delivery on health, care and support, poverty, decent work, and climate action.

 

Older persons are often living at the margins, disproportionately experiencing poverty, poor health and the consequences of climate change and other shocks. The negative effects caused by ageism means the rights of older persons are often unrecognised, unfulfilled, and violated. These conditions and issues are significantly worsened in conflict and humanitarian contexts. But older persons are refusing to be left behind. When recognised as full partners in localizationof SDGs, they are drawing on their insights and experiences to inform policies and programmes to address the daily issues they face and deliver more equitable outcomes for their families, communities and societies.

SDG 3: Transforming systems to deliver good health and wellbeing for all ages.

Many older persons face prohibitive health costs, barriers in accessing health, care and support services, and face the greatest burden of the failure to adequately address non-communicable diseases. Health systems are falling short in integrating a life course approach, leading to the accumulation of negative health impacts in later life. Older persons often face age discrimination that violates their right to access health and care related goods, facilities and services on an equal basis with others. When older persons are engaged as full partners in the delivery of SDG 3, priorities and approaches that will benefit all become clear. These include calling on governments to: 1. Adopt a rights-based approach to health, care and support systems that support engagement, participation, empowerment, independence, agency and autonomy with person-centred long-term care provision that is personalised, coordinated and enabling, and ensures every person is treated with dignity, compassion and respect. 2. Establish affordable, inclusive and accessible health, care and support systems that are age-, gender-, and disability-responsive by prioritising equity and enabling tailored interventions that respect the diverse experiences and challenges faced by various populations. 3. Integrate primary and community-based approaches and provide adequate resourcing to promote healthy ageing and address the crisis in noncommunicable disease that severely impacts older persons.

SDG 1 and SDG 8: Ending poverty through social protection and decent work.

According to the World Social Protection Report 2024-26, worldwide, an estimated 79.6 per cent of people above retirement age receive a pension. However, older persons continue to face social protection coverage and adequacy challenges, with more than 165 million people above the statutory retirement age living with a pension. Women are less likely to be receiving a pension due to inequalities experienced in the labour market across their life course. Older persons also face discrimination in accessing financial services, and older women in particular may be denied their inheritance or a deceased spouse’s pension. Income from employment tends to diminish in later life, yet many older persons remain engaged in the labour market, out of choice or necessity. Older workers can face age-, gender- and disability-based discrimination at work, alongside other barriers in accessing decent work opportunities. The voices and experiences of older persons engaged in the delivery of SDG 1 and SDG 8 call on governments to: 1. Provide stronger social protection for all, including universal social (noncontributory) pensions for all older persons with adequate benefit levels that contribute to income security, dignity, and well-being in older age. 2. Ensure accessible social protection accountability mechanisms that engage older persons through community structures and monitoring groups are in place to ensure pensions are adequate, responsive and inclusive. 3. Improve equitable access to work for older persons, for as long as they want and for as long as they are able to do so, by combating ageism, including age discrimination through legislation, national policies, training, evidence and public awareness raising and agefriendly workplaces.

SDG 5: Gender equality for older women 

Older women face specific challenges including poverty, health inequalities, gender-based violence, barriers to employment, and the disproportional. Older women are also routinely excluded from key data sets under SDG indicators which end at age 49. The Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action recognised age discrimination as a barrier to women’s empowerment and advancement, and this is reinforced by the SDGs which aim to promote gender equality and empower girls and women of all ages. Building on this, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) adopted a multiyear programme of work for 2026–2029, that recalls paragraph 67 of General Assembly resolution 79/147 on the follow-up to the Second World Assembly on Ageing, and invites the Commission to consider placing the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of older women as a focus area of its seventieth session in 2026 (CSW70). Through working with older women to achieve SDG 5, governments should: 1. Amplify the voices and meaningful participation of older women by actively engaging them in processes at all levels. This includes collecting and analysing sex-, age- and disability disaggregated data, addressing structural gender inequalities, and ensuring their lived experiences and perspectives inform policies and programmes to advance gender equality. 2. Ensure that policies and legislation protect and promote the rights of older women by creating new frameworks and strengthening the implementation of existing ones. This should explicitly prohibit discrimination based on age, gender, and other status in national, regional, and international legal instruments. 

SDG 13: Older persons at the front line of climate action.

 Climate change presents growing challenges that affect everyone, and solutions must be inclusive of all. Rising temperatures, more frequent disasters, and changing ecosystems impact older persons, many of whom face mobility challenges, health risks, and financial insecurity that exacerbates their vulnerability. Older persons also bring knowledge and perspectives, understanding the consequences that continued climate change will have on their families and communities. The world has the best chance of driving meaningful climate action and building resilient communities if all generations work together to confront the climate crisis. Recommendations for national and subnational governments to deliver SDG 13 in partnership with older persons: 1. Recognise and appreciate older persons’ knowledge of the environment, natural resources and their communities and bring those viewpoints to discussions, policies and initiatives. 2. Strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of communities and all older persons through specific programmes that include and engage people of all ages in local planning, decision making, implementation and monitoring. 3. Ensure government funding addressing climate change integrates ageing and the specific experiences and needs of older persons at local levels, especially within adaptation finance, so that older persons are not left out of climate action.