4. The European and International
Policy framework
The European Year 2012 for Active Ageing and Solidarity
between Generation: raising awareness on older people's
concerns and added value http://ec.europa.
eu/social/ey2012.jsp?langId=en
The European Innovation Partnership on Active and
Healthy Ageing - EIP AHA: enabling citizens to lead health,
active and independent lives when ageing, responding to
the challenges of ageing, working for an age-friendly
European Union
The International Action Plan on Ageing and WHO Age-
Friendly Cities: mainstreaming ageing issues into
development and implementation agendas worldwide.
6. Age-friendly communities-
- New Action for the EU 2012 Year for Active Ageing and
Intergenerational Solidarity, Age Platform plus the EU
Committee of the Regions and other organizations, pushing
for action at local and regional levels
- - European Covenant of Mayors on Active Healthy
Ageing; this would be a European Covenant on Demographic
Change- important as a way of creating the necessary political
framework to bring together local and regional authorities - and
other stakeholders across the EU - who want to find smart and
innovative solutions to support active and healthy ageing, youth
participation and development, through the exchange of
experience and working together to develop age-friendly
environments
7. Co-operation
- Working with your local government to create support
for the WHO Age Friendly Communities/Cities.
-Inform AGE Platform of actions that work well in your
country in promoting intergenerational solidarity, in
creating employment, in successful work to promote
older people’s interests with and by Regional
government and Local government.
- Use AGE Platform’s material on line to inspire
yourselves. Age members are small and large NGOs -
together we form a large voice of experienced people
who can help to push our communities in directions
which include the active participation of all older people.
8. AGE Platform Europe
Rue Froissart 111
1040 Bruxelles – Belgique
tel. : +32.2.280.14.70
fax : +32.2.280.15.22
www.age-platform.eu
Hinweis der Redaktion
Introduction to Age Platform -
AGE Platform is a advocacy organization- we try to influence governments and policy makers to change behaviour so that it acknowledges the needs of older people. There are so many policy initiatives that take place in the EU context.. Not all governments do or can do a huge amount but we are trying to push them in so many ways. AFC needs commitment not a lot of money- it focuses on the needs of older people. So here are a number of important initiatives that AGE was active in promoting with the Commission, with the Committee of the Regions - have produced guidelines, books for regional and local authorities to try and help them see how they must shift attitudes to incorporating the needs and active participaiton of older people.
UN Convention od Rights of People with Disabilities. European Innovative Partnership - Active Healthy Aging These are EU institutions but there are others that cover all of Europe e.g. Council of Europe - with human rights as one of its central concerns. And WHO - WHO Global Network on Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (GNAFCC) and WHO Europe Healthy Cities Network web community on age-friendly communities bring together local authorities committed to promote healthy ageing through making their environment more age-friendly. AGE Platform pushing for a much wider notion of age friendly - in cooperation with WHO - the Covenant
The WHO Age-Friendly cities network focuses on actions for ageing: this Covenant would be indeed broader than this: encompassing many dimensions of Demographic Change within the European context. The local authorities signatories of the Covenant would be encouraged to adopt WHO policy frameworks and guidance on age-friendly environments, to join the WHO network of cities that cooperate on age-friendly policies and to get actively involved in the EIP-AHA and other relevant EU initiatives. There are already 45 EU cities involved in the GNAFCC (June 2012) and more than 90 cities and towns from 30 countries in the Healthy Cities networks - plus those also linked through national, regional, metropolitan and thematic groups involved in the WHO Europe Healthy Cities Network web community on age-friendly communities. Their experience could be very useful for other EU cities. WHO networks are open to local authorities only - the Proposal for the Covenant would be open to both local and regional authorities to reflect EU governance system. A good coordination between the different governance levels is essential to ensure a maximum impact. As experience show through the Covenant of Mayors on climate change, it is this multi-level governance approach that has deemed it so successful (based on the model of the Covenant of Mayors on climate change)/ and coordinate better their action toward the relevant Europe 2020 flagship initiatives
The more the merrier - plus we are all involved in this - IFA too. Never forget that politicians get older and they have their mothers to worry about - lobbying is an essential task.
A huge amount of information available - see the web site. Always please to hear from others outise the EU, as to what is occurring - to form alliances. All on the same side. Evident in the Huamn Rights work.