New York, September 28 (BUS): One after another, presidents and prime ministers of the world came to warn of the trials of their countries and to encourage their victories. But one of the biggest problems with either column is mostly left out.
As war, climate change and inequality have consumed much of the work of the United Nations General Assembly, leaders are largely left without saying the historical growth of the planet’s aging population.
“Older people are largely missing out,” Claudia Mahler, one of the few voices at the United Nations dedicated to aging, said at the Commission on Human Rights. “Everyone thinks the future is just a thing for young people.”
All over the world, societies are witnessing the promise and perils of gray lands. Improvements in public health and medical advances and a decline in poverty have led to longer lifespans, enhanced workplaces with experienced colleagues, and families blessed with grandparents and great-grandparents, the AP reports.
At the same time, the care-delivery crises and the economic crisis have widened as older people outgrow their resources and suffer from untreated illnesses.
But when leaders took to the podium last week and addressed the world in front of the green marble in the hall, few saw the noteworthy transformation. They spoke of “new generations”, of “children” and “youth”. They decree that listening to young people is “essential” and making sure that their education is “holy.” The old man rarely makes the cut.
“Everyone is focused on young people only,” said Mahler, whose official UN title is an independent expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons. “Older people are not loud enough and there are not enough leaders who are really focused…Nobody wants to take up the topic despite its urgency.”
The population of 60 years or older has risen in recent decades, numbering around one billion people globally. The United Nations predicts that it will double again in the next three decades. Along the way, global headlines will inevitably intersect with the oldest among us, just as they do today.
As war descends, the most vulnerable are caught in the crossfire. As global economies falter, those who live in the sunset are left penniless. As climate change forces some to leave their homes, the elderly are often left behind.
Then there is COVID-19, the all-consuming story of the past two and a half years, whose brutality over the old has been unparalleled and has shed international light on the long-worsening issues of inadequate care systems and social isolation.
“While older adults are immersed in the critical issues of our time and often face disproportionate influences, they are often left out,” said Lauren Dunning, director of the Center for the Future of Aging at the Milken Institute. “Focusing on one generation without taking into account the others hinders everyone’s progress.”
For some, it was understandable that other issues sucked a lot of air out of the assembly hall. If an island nation threatens to be swallowed up by rising seas or a nuclear war to wipe out everyone’s lives, the issues posed by age may diminish.
But leaders who overlooked the topic still ranted about all sorts of pet priorities, including social media regulation (Slovakia); Cryptocurrency Law (Central African Republic); Undersea mining (Costa Rica); mangrove conservation (Suriname); snake bites (eswatini); and Armed Artificial Intelligence (Philippines).
“The global agenda is really crowded right now,” said Martin Edwards, a professor at Seton Hall University who is affiliated with the school’s Center for the United Nations and Global Governance Studies.
“A lot of the discussion about youth is framed as to what is our duty to the next generation. Politically, I think it’s easy for leaders sometimes to talk about youth in some sense, and there may not be an aging-ready constituency.”
There have been exceptions at the United Nations over the past week, with some leaders making fleeting references to aging.
Some boasted gains in life expectancy, as did the president of Timor-Leste; They noted their commitment to social safety nets for the elderly, as stated in the letter of the Prime Minister of Mauritius; Or he did both, as in the leader of Bangladesh.
Others mentioned in passing how the elderly got caught up in their country’s struggles, as mentioned in speeches by the presidents of the Palestinian Authority and Ukraine. Standing apart from most of the others, Bolivian President Luis Ars dedicated part of his speech to the elderly, although it was still less than a minute from a 37-minute speech.
“We are concerned about focusing on future generations without taking into account all the work done by the elderly and the older generations,” Ars said, urging young people to “show solidarity with those who built our nations” and noted that there is no equivalent to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which It was passed in 1989, for those at the other end of the age spectrum.
“We are concerned that as of now, there is no global treaty protecting older people, and we hope this will be an opportunity for more in-depth reflection on this topic,” said Arce, who will turn 59 on Wednesday.
There is some oddity in the exclusion of most leaders, since the men and women behind the chapel are themselves considerably older and represent countries whose elderly populations thrive.
Some dismiss aging as the “world’s number one problem”, for the world’s richest in countries across Asia and regions of the North and West, and not in the African lands where the average person lives in their fifties. But in reality, problems with aging have appeared everywhere and to varying degrees.
Aging has not always been absent from UN actions. Forty years ago, the General Assembly held its first World Assembly on Aging. It resulted in an International Plan of Action, and in the following years, the United Nations adopted various principles and declarations on older persons and convened a second World Assembly in 2002.
What did not follow, Mahler said, was that the issue became a central priority in any national or global debate, or diverted leaders’ ability to talk about it in any way other than focusing on its negative effects.
With a whiff of exasperation in her voice, Mahler spoke of the lack of concern for the elderly as she prepared to present her findings to the United Nations on the deprivation of liberty of the elderly. She knows that it will be difficult to attract a lot of attention from leaders and an audience that often ignores the elderly.
“There is a large group of old people left behind,” she said.