The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing

The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021-2030) is a global collaboration that brings together diverse sectors and stakeholders including governments, civil society, international organizations, professionals, academic institutions, the media and the private sector to improve the lives of older people, their families and communities.

The Decade plan of action recognises that a convening mechanism is required to foster these multisectoral and multi-stakeholder collaborations in ways that encourage a ‘different way of doing business’ across four areas called the Decade ‘enablers’:

Listening to diverse voices and enabling meaningful engagement of older people, family members, caregivers, young people and communities;
Nurturing leadership and capacity building to take appropriate action integrated across sectors;
Connecting various stakeholders around the world to share and learn from the experiences of others; and
Strengthening data, research and innovation to accelerate implementation.

The Decade Platform (https://www.decadeofhealthyageing.org) has been designed to be this convening mechanism by creating an online, multilingual collaboration space designed from the ground up to facilitate the knowledge exchange and networking necessary to bring stakeholders together for the success of the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing. The Decade Platform was developed based on the results of consultation with key stakeholders from over 80 countries and reflects the priority support needs identified through this process.

The Decade Platform is freely available for any stakeholder from any part of the world to find, share, and produce knowledge on healthy ageing across five core knowledge categories spanning the four Decade enablers:

VOICES: stories, quotes, interviews, and multimedia featuring the perspectives and experiences of older people, their families, their communities, and other stakeholders
RESOURCES: publications, databases & repositories, multimedia, events, commentaries, and news
CONNECT: organisations & networks, and people
INNOVATE: research projects, advocacy campaigns, implementation projects, funding opportunities, Calls for…, and Reports from the Field
SUPPORT: toolkits and training programmes

All knowledge sign-posted through the Platform are contributions shared by stakeholders around the world, across sectors and disciplines. Submissions are open to the public, and all Platform content is carefully reviewed before publication according to a publicly available set of criteria. Moreover, as the Decade develops and progresses, the Decade Platform will continue to evolve to best meet the needs of stakeholders and changing contexts.

As WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has stated, ‘it takes knowledge to transform the world to be a better place to be older’. The Decade Platform presents a unique opportunity to truly work together across sectors, disciplines, regions, and stakeholder groups in the spirit of openness and solidarity towards realising the vision of a world where all people can live long, healthy lives. [429 words]

Useful inks:

The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing knowledge exchange Platform