The Commonwealth’s roadmap for ‘ageing well’ was launched on 23 October at a side event on non-communicable diseases during the week of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), although that was just a convenient moment in a full week. As the outgoing Secretary General Patricia Scotland writes in the foreword to the report, healthy ageing is not just an issue for health services.
The Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Healthy Ageing, Professor Dame Carol Black, who was key to the development of the roadmap, writes in her foreword that ageing well requires a mix of health care and social services, access to the labour market, fostering autonomous living with dignity and, above all, calling out ageism. She said at the launch: “We can celebrate that people are living longer. But they need to age well.”
The roadmap is given extra significance because – although the Commonwealth currently has a young population (60% under 30), they are ageing, as life expectancy heads in a different direction from fertility. Between 2019 and 2050 it is projected that the number of Commonwealth citizens over 65 will rise by 142% from 231 million to 559 million [UN DESA Population Division (2019a), World Population Prospects 2019: Volume II: Demographic Profiles. ST/ESA/SER.A/427]. The costs of an ageing population that is poor, unhealthy and isolated from communities would be stark if not addressed now.
The roadmap is clear that this is a social issue, not *just* a medical one (echoing the concerns of disabled people in the Commonwealth about the model of disability), even though it *is* an issue of access to health and care, especially where lamentably low public funding means that universal healthcare is a dream rather than a reality.
And it is about intergenerational solidarity: older people should have agency over ageing well, but so too should the young – being part of the preparation. The report argues that everyone would benefit from the approach it proposes.
Commonwealth: The future is grey
Ageing is a highly gendered issue, something presumably not lost on the first woman Secretary-General or her female special envoy! Women – often old themselves – provide huge amounts of unpaid care, and this needs to be addressed urgently through investment in the care sector.
Fundamentally, the roadmap challenges the lack of joined up policies to address intersectional crises – like age-related poverty, climate, race and disability. It says “this means investing in universal healthcare coverage … combating ageist practices in employment and social life, and ensuring that older people have seats at the decision-making table.”
The roadmap itself consists of 31 fairly broad (but in some cases pointedly precise) actions and 32 non-exclusive indicators of progress grouped under five objectives (from creating supportive environments, lifelong learning, employment and volunteering to data and monitoring.) There are case studies of positive action from across the Commonwealth, but the central call is that governments should make plans with civil society organisations and other stakeholders.
The roadmap itself is testament to the successful engagement of CommonAge, one of the Commonwealth’s Accredited Organisations, who pressed initially for the appointment of a special envoy, and then helped the Commonwealth Secretariat and that envoy to draft the roadmap – an example of the louder “nothing about us, without us” call from civil society, although many other groups contributed, and many more will need to as the roadmap rolls out between now and 2030. CommonAge also launched their report on dementia in the Commonwealth earlier in the week.
Their President, Mansur Dalal from India, said this week: “This is an opportunity for countries which have a huge population bulge that in the near future is going to create challenges for care, to learn from some of the mistakes of the countries ahead of the curve which are now struggling. Healthy ageing would considerably reduce the burden on families and governments.”
Carol Black concluded her remarks at CHOGM with an appeal to governments: “Don’t let this report sit on the shelf like so many others. Together, we can make the Commonwealth a beacon of good practice.”
Ageing Well in the Commonwealth: a roadmap for healthy ageing, across the life course, is available online at https://thecommonwealth.
Owen Tudor is the Secretary of the Commonwealth Trade Union Group and a member of the Round Table editorial board. He is currently attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa.
