Commission for Social Development

Acting as Preparatory Committee for

 Second World Assembly on Ageing

3^rd Meeting (PM)

PREPARATORY COMMITTEE FOR 2002 WORLD ASSEMBLY ON AGEING

CONTINUES ELECTION OF BUREAU

The Commission on Social Development acting as the Preparatory Committee for the Second World Assembly on Ageing, to be held in Madrid, Spain in April

2002, this morning elected Asith Kumar Bhattacharjee (India) as a Vice-Chairman.

On Monday, the Preparatory Committee elected Felipe Paolillo (Uruguay)  Chairman and Maria Jose Carrilho (Portugal) as Vice-Chair.  The Committee’s Bureau will be complete upon the election of two more vice-chairs, after which one of the four vice-chairs will be designated as rapporteur.

Meeting through 2 March for the first of two sessions, the Preparatory Committee is negotiating a revised International Plan of Action on Ageing, first adopted in Vienna in 1982, beginning with the portion entitled "Strategy for a society for all ages".  Amid growing concern over the intensifying speed and scale of global ageing, the Committee seeks to advance the global ageing agenda beyond the 1982 Plan of Action and address the dramatic force of population ageing and its impact on development and institutions, particularly in the developing world.

During the Committee's day-long general discussion on Monday, which is due to conclude on Thursday with a statement by a representative of the “Group of 77” developing countries and China, speakers drew attention to the demographic, social and economic changes that had occurred since the adoption of the 1982 action plan and highlighted the ways in which those changes had affected their countries.  Representatives of four non-governmental organizations, comprising networks of dozens of civil society groups seized with issues of ageing, also spoke.

For their discussion, members had before them a report of the Secretary-General in which he describes the 1982 plan as a remarkable accomplishment of broad scope, but one which focused primarily on the needs and circumstances of the developed world as the site of the most visible demographic change at that time.  Two decades later, the extraordinary growth in the global older population and its acceleration in developing countries required an updated action plan that reflected the perspectives of ageing in developing societies.

Among its other objectives, the Committee hopes to decide on the accreditation and participation of non-governmental organizations in the World Assembly and its preparatory process.  It is also expected to negotiate the draft provisional rules of procedure of the World Assembly, as well as a draft decision on the Assembly's organization of work.

The Preparatory Committee will meet again at a time to be announced.