In our Dec. 2001/Mar.2002 issue we dealt with the preparations for the Second World Assembly on Ageing. This article deals with implementation and monitoring its results.

Civil Society Approaches to Policy Monitoring

2002 saw three major conferences being held under the auspices of the United Nations: the International Conference on Financing for Development, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and, that seems often forgotten, the Second World Assembly on Ageing.
While finance and sustainable development appear to be the topic of the day, the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA) is truly a groundbreaking document because for the first time population ageing and older persons have been put firmly on the development agenda.

The importance of population ageing cannot be overemphasized. Thus, in the Secretary-General’s report on Strengthening the United Nations there is a section that speaks about aligning activities with priorities and in which the Secretary-General observes: “We must also prepare for the shift that has already started in the relative proportions of young people and the aged in most parts of the world and its implications for the labour force, social services and political processes”. Those of you who were present in Madrid will certainly remember the Secretary-General’s reference to ageing as a “silent revolution” and a force whose magnitude is no less than that of globalization.

Surely none of us need convincing of the need for a global response. The very existence of this meeting speaks to the commitments of civil society to address challenges arising from this demographic transition unprecedented in human history. Where we must now concentrate our debate is how to determine that our efforts will go beyond words, to actions.

At the Second World Assembly on Ageing, Member States adopted a new International Plan of Action on Ageing to guide thinking and policy on ageing for decades to come. Its recommendations are both practical and comprehensive and have broadened our understanding of the challenges and opportunities that are influencing society’s changing landscape.
The Plan summarizes important and relevant issues for an ageing world. Issues were being examined from the perspective of three priority directions: older persons and development; advancing health and well-being into old age; and ensuring enabling and supportive environments.

The Plan should be seen as a blueprint for the effective training and improved knowledge of those responsible for protecting the public interest on behalf of governments and civil society. The Plan provides a balanced approach to reconciling and harmonizing the interests of all stakeholders – governmental and nongovernmental alike – enabling them to adequately address issues of ageing in their respective countries.

The central themes running throughout the recommendations are built on a human rights imperative and a gender perspective. They reaffirm the goal of eradicating poverty and building on the United Nations Principles for Older Persons, which underscore the importance of care, participation, self-fulfillment, independence and dignity.

Now that Madrid has taken place, the very next item on the agenda of the United Nations and its partners is the implementation of the Plan. In this endeavour, everyone will be called on to embrace a range of options and identify their share of the responsibility. The ways in which tasks are allocated will vary widely from structure to structure across the spectrum. But as varied as the issues are, there is a commonality that speaks to the human potential in all of us to create a better world for men and women as they age, and by extension, their families and communities.

On Monday, last, I introduced the Note by the Secretariat which we prepared to facilitate the Commission’s consideration of the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing. Specifically it addresses paragraph 132 of the Madrid Plan in which States requested the Commission for Social Development to integrate the different dimensions of population ageing in its work and to consider the modalities for review and appraisal of follow up to the Assembly as soon as possible. The General Assembly by resolution 57/167 further requested that the Commission consider these modalities at its forty-first session. One approach for the review and appraisal is suggested in the Note, and this may require some further explanation.

The Madrid Plan of Action produced 18 issues and 239 recommendations. There is no way that this plethora of actions can be effectively followed up at the global level. None the less, the Madrid Plan of Action is global in nature because some 190 countries agreed to its content Notwithstanding this observation, effective implementation has to run via the regional commissions or other regional entities to the national level, subnational level and ultimately local level.

The Note by the Secretariat advocates a "bottom-up" approach, partly for the simple reason that the past practice of sending questionnaires to Member States has yielded only mixed results, but mostly for the reason that not every recommendation in the Madrid Plan of Action is of equal relevance in every country. Issues of ageing vary not only from country to country but also within countries. Therefore, getting a meaningful review and appraisal has to start with the recognition that issues, confronting older persons, are not in all cases universal.

Our view is that the review and appraisal should start at the local level with close involvement of civil society, especially older persons themselves. The results of local reviews and appraisals should subsequently percolate up to the national level indicating gaps as well as issues of common interest, including areas that require priority attention. Following the national reviews and appraisals, these national results should be brought up to the regional level indicating differences as well as commonalities among the national results. Ultimately, the regional outcomes should find their way to the global level that is here at the Commission for Social Development where the final review and appraisal would occur based on the regional results, which, it is hoped, would reflect the variety of local and national findings.

Unfortunately, there are those who believe that discussing the review and appraisal of MIPAA is premature because the whole problematique of Conference follow-up is now being examined in a General Assembly Working Group whose recommendations should set the tone on how an integrated and coordinated follow-up to major UN Conferences and Summits should take place.
I, for one, would consider it a pity if the Commission for Social Development would simply pass the buck to some other UN body before it can pronounce itself on the review and appraisal of MIPAA. To older persons, especially poor older persons, the world over, it will be difficult to explain why their concerns are not addressed now but rather have to await the outcome of some arcane discussions on periodicity and other politically intricate considerations on conference follow-up.

In my opinion, it is clearly the Commission for Social Development where the review and appraisal should take place. In many ways this reflects a past practice before the advent of the Earth Summit in Rio. Reviews and appraisals were conducted within the confines of the functional commissions. Rio and its aftermath have caused great difficulties if not harm by setting the tone for Special Sessions and plus 10 processes. Retreating from such an approach would not be admitting to defeat but rather acknowledge that we have within this house existing intergovernmental bodies that are perfectly capable of carrying out the task at hand without turning that task into a jamboree. To me the objective is not to renegotiate the Madrid Plan of Action but rather to identify progress or the lack thereof in the implementation of that Plan. The Commission for Social Development is eminently qualified to do so.

From opening remarks at the Commission on Social Development