As an organization with NGO consultative status, the Global Ageing Network has been actively engaged in advocating for a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons—for 15 years—through the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing (OEWGA). Andrew Kavala, a global ageing network board member, participated in the Human Rights Council as the expert member for the southern African region for the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. Marcus Riley, a Global Ageing Network board member and Executive Chairman at Ballycara, shared Global Ageing Network’s written statement for the 58th session of the Human Rights Council.
Alejandro Bonilla Garcia, chair of the NGO Committee on Ageing (Geneva) and representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) of the International Federation on Ageing, says the April 3 resolution, driven by a core group of nations including Argentina, Brazil, The Gambia, the Philippines, and Slovenia, was supported by 68 cosponsoring countries, including thirty-three members of the Human Rights Council.
The next step, he reports, is the creation of a working group that will negotiate and draft the instrument to enshrine older persons’ rights into international law.
In the April 2025 issue of UN Today magazine, Garcia discusses the significance of the UN Convention for the global population of people aged 65-plus, which will double to 1.6 billion by 2050.
The Convention, Garcia says, “is essential to ensure older persons’ equality, dignity, and societal inclusion—not just for today’s population but for the youth and children who will be the older persons of tomorrow.” He discusses the vital role of governments and civil society organizations in “transforming advocacy into actionable commitments,” and outlines the threats to older adults from violence and neglect, ageism leading to exclusion from health services and care systems, climate change, conflicts and natural disasters, and more.
For more on global issues surrounding the human rights of older people, see this Human Rights Watch page and the NGO Committee on Ageing site.
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Photo Credit: UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré
