Measuring action on global ageing

Examples from Helpage International

Kings College 23 March 2015

Sylvia Beales HelpAge International sbeales@helpage.org

HelpAge works with 116 Affiliates and 6 regional offices in 74 countries; Global Network and NGO

Our motivation – counting the uncounted

Listening to and making visible who is ageing, and where

Responding to our changing world

In 2014In 2014

868m868mare aged 60 are aged 60

or overor over

By 2050By 2050

2.02b2.02bwill be aged will be aged

60 or over60 or over

66%66% of the of the

world’s 60+ live world’s 60+ live

in low- and in low- and

middle- income middle- income

countriescountries

By 2050 the By 2050 the

proportion is proportion is

projected to projected to

rise to rise to 80%80%

Scale and rate of global population ageing

Increases in all regions

Source: UNDESA Population Division, Population Ageing and Development 2012, Wall Chart, 2012; UNDESA Population Division, World Population Prospects: the 2012 Revision, 2013

Older people are disproportionally affected

Older people and disasters

Background findings of ‘ Ageing in the 21st Century – a celebration and a challenge’

Older people play a vital role, giving more than they receive

Investment in basic income security, pensions systems and health brings returns across generations

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on the rise

Dementia care costs fall mainly on the family. Worldwide cost of dementia in 2010: US$604 billion.

Environmental change and humanitarian disaster affect older people disproportionately

Age-friendly housing and transport vital to access services

Elder abuse often hidden in families – shame and stigma

Global Agewatch Index – what is it? • Monitors well-being of older people across the world

• Benchmarks countries and provide insight into areas of policy intervention

• Provides a guideline framework for governments and international institutions on key data to collect to develop and respond to population ageing

• Helps identify, track and monitor key trends on ageing at country, regional and global levels

• Ensures the Post 2015 framework includes older people and responds to the UN Secretary General’s call for a ‘data revolution’.

• Uses the latest cross-national data available from World Bank, WHO, ILO, and Gallup World View

• Covers 96 countries representing 91% of the world’s older people interactive website www.globalagewatch.org

Four domains and thirteen indicators

Where next? Filling the gaps

Older people contribute so much…

it’s time to invest in them

Gaps in data in income security domain meant only possible to include 96 countries

2014 rankings

• To demonstrate what is currently possible with existing data sets to assess the situation of older people and disaster risk

• To provide direction to governments and policy makers on what needs to improve to reduce the risk to older people

• To highlight the major mega trends of increasing disaster risk and an ageing globe

• Importantly to highlight the data gaps on older people and limitations

Disaster Risk and Age IndexIndex of countries based on their old age populations risk to disaster

Disaster Risk and Age Index Methodology• Old Age augmented version of INFORM Global Risk Index

unchanged

Examples: child mortality

removed; pension coverage and

relative old age poverty

introduced, some indicators

were age disaggregated

Examples: Introduced 60+

access to internet and mobile

technology; 60+mortality for

diarrheal diseases as a proxy for

health system strength

Findings ©

Elli

e Cole

man

/ H

elpAge

Inte

rnat

ional

Ageing and disaster smart development

Investments in pension systems are one of the most important ways to ensure economic independence and reduce poverty in old age.

Older people need to be included in all actions addressing both infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis, malaria and diarrheal diseases) and no communicable diseases (NCDs). Food security and nutrition appropriate for people in later life should also be ensured to boost overall health and wellbeing.

An age-friendly physical environment (affordable and disaster-resilient housing and easily accessible transportation) that promotes the development and use of innovative technologies to encourage active ageing is especially important as people grow older and experience reduced mobility and visual and hearing impairments.

Major efforts must be made to collect and provide much higher levels of age, sex and disability disaggregated data across development data sets

Cross-national research challenges: Data

• We lack internationally comparable data on older people (e.g. poverty in old age, political participation, life-long learning, psychological well-being)

Cross-national research challenges: Data• When data is available it might not reflect the current

situation

• Time lag when national statistics makes it to international datasets

• No international agreement on methodology of measuring indicators (e.g. HALE; poverty rate: absolute vs. relative; equivalence scale; income vs. consumption based)

• Subjective indicators - better quality data needed

greater sample and age group 60+

• should be part of national datasets (e.g. Eurofound Quality of life Survey 2012, EU Quality of life indicators

2014/5 influencing impact examples

• Global - Post-2015; putting age in the new Sustainable Development Goal Framework: through

Improving and extending data on ageing - leave no one behind

Input of findings to Member State and regional body negotiations – age in 7 of the 17 proposed goals of framework

Highlighting age in November ‘14 data report of UN expert ‘data revolution’ group, and in December ‘14 SG report

Using Global AgeWatch Index together with Commonwealth Youth Index to promote better data and visibility of youth and older people

• The Economic and Social Research Council support national research from January 2015 using the Index framework in 4 Asian countries - China, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh

• National Index development in Korea, China and Kenya

• United Arab Emirates propose a regional Index to support planning on ageing and to fill in data gaps for the region

Charter 14

Thank you and spread the word! www.helpage.org