One year ahead of the 15th Global Conference in November 2020, a new website for the International Federation on Ageing (IFA) has now launched, which has helped to focus their message more clearly. For a second time, Change Rangers is a Conference Partner and over the next year leading up to the event in Niagara Falls, Canada, this blog series will give a monthly update with comments on issues addressed under the theme of the conference – Rights Matter.
Optics are significant in message building and what first appealed to me upon opening the new home page on the website was the photograph – two generations, likely grandfather and granddaughter. This further supports a view that an aging world (or a longevity society as I frame it), is not all about older people – this is an intergenerational matter and an international experience.
The vision of the IFA is – “A world of healthy older people whose rights and choices are both protected and respected.” While this vision works for the current rolling populations of older people, it also is one that projects itself long into a future where younger generations of a 2020 world will inherit the benefits of the health and social policy decisions we make today for their better tomorrow.
Regarding the conference theme Rights Matter, the same thing applies. How we treat the rights of older people today, is really the model for tomorrow. One of the points the IFA website draws attention to under the heading “Our World” is as they say – “We live in unprecedented times with the demographic upheavals of population ageing, globalisation, migration and urbanisation driving significant environmental and societal change.” Not to take away from the IFA focus of older adults, all these demographic upheavals are of intergenerational concern.
With its headquarters in Toronto, the International Federation on Ageing is an influential global thought leader and consultative network with strong connections to a number of organizations from the World Health Organization to the United Nations. The quality of conversations as exhibited at the 2018 conference and through their ongoing series of webinars is an opportunity to gain an international perspective for anyone who is working in the field of aging and longevity.
It might not be too late for you, but the next webinar I will be attending is on November 27, 2019 – “Mobilizing to Support the Rights of Older Persons” with Keynote Speaker, Margaret Gillis President, International Longevity Centre Canada
Register here. The webinar will:
- Explore the pervasive tendency to discount the rights of older people in Canada and in the global arena
- Present a case study on the rights of older women/grandmothers in sub-Saharan Africa
- Argue that a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons is needed to protect and enhance older person’s rights
- Discuss how we can take action steps to create momentum and Canadian leadership in preparing and ratifying the Convention.