Meeting of Working Group on Ageing, Geneva 1-2 December 2008

The first meeting of the working group on ageing was held during 1-2 December 2008 in Geneva. Representatives of 38 countries from UNECE, European Commission, 10 NGOs, and international organizations like UNFPA, ECV, INIA, OECD, etc, took part in this meeting. In the first part of the meeting, after a presentation by representatives of UNECE/Population Unit, the participants approved the meeting agenda and elected the secretariat of the working group, as well as its chairperson.
Afterwards, the Secretariat informed the working group about the reference topics and the steps to be taken by this groups, and made a short presentation of ageing activities carried out by the Ministerial Conference of Leon (Spain), as well as an outlining of the work plan for 2009- 2010, which aims at supporting the implementation of the Regional Strategy for Madrid Action Plan on Ageing, as well as the Ministerial Declaration of Leon.
The work plan consists of four components:
1. Monitoring: developing indicators, data gathering and distribution of information.
After a presentation by the European Centre of Vienna (ECV) proposal about monitoring activities, which included further developing of indicators, the working group decided: 1) to maintain and further develop the website for monitoring the Regional Ageing Strategy www.monitoringRIS.org as a platform for exchanging experiences and distributing the monitoring results; 2) to initiate cooperation with the Conference of European Statisticians for coordinating the available data; 3) to develop gender indicators for the long-term care, etc.
2. Summary of best policies and practices
The secretariat explained the concepts of summarizing policies, and some representatives from Albania, Belgium, and France, introduced some best practices concerning gender and ageing mainstreaming. After discussions among all the participants, the following issues were identified as priorities: ageing mainstreaming, gender, promotion of health and prevention of diseases and accidents, long-term care, participation, old people as consumers, and the adoption of a social protection system.
3. Capacity building
The secretariat presented a proposal for a workshop on capacity building to be organized during the second half of 2009, as well as for preparing the country maps for the ageing mainstreaming. Representatives of the UNDESA, UNFPA and INIA informed the working group about their support for such activities.
4. Analysis of inter-generation relationships.
The secretariat presented a summary of comparative analysis on inter-generation relationships in contexts of different cultures and policies, based on research projects and the use of data collected through the UNECE Generation Gender Program.
The Albanian experience in the field of gender, closely related with the solidarity between generations, was what the Secretariat had selected to present as one of the five best examples. This experience was presented by Ms Valbona Jaupllari, expert in drafting the Ageing and Gender Inter-Sectorial Development Document.
At the end of the meeting, the chairperson of the working group made a summary of the decisions made at the meeting of the first working group on ageing. The second meeting was decided to take place during 23-24 November