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Need Financial Help to Raise Your Grandchild?2009 United Nations International Day of Older Persons
AARP Statement on the Occasion of
the
2009 United Nations International
Day of Older Persons
October 1, 2009
By Barry Rand
, AARP CEO
As we pause to celebrate the nineteenth
annual International Day of Older Persons, we also stop to reflect
on the changing world we live in and the challenges that lie ahead.
Our world has changed dramatically in
the ten years since the International Year of Older Persons in
1999. As of 2008, 62 percent (313 million) of the world's
people aged 65 and older lived in developing countries. By
2040, today's developing countries will be home to more than one
billion people 65+, 76 percent of the projected world total.
Moreover, people 80+, are the fastest growing portion of the
population in many countries, including the United States.
The aging of the world's population is
the transformational issue of our time. As people get older,
they want and need many of the same things, regardless of where they
live. They want health and financial security. And they
want options for living their lives. They want to be included in
their societies and to be able to enjoy the opportunities that life
has to offer. So, we must ask ourselves:
·
How will we address aging populations?
·
How will we ensure long-term health care
and economic security for so many?
·
How will we ensure dignity and
independence as we age?
·
How will we do all of this without
burdening future generations with the costs?
·
How will we use our knowledge and
experience to create a better world for our kids, grandkids and
great-grandkids?
·
In short, how will we create a world
where people in all societies can age with dignity and purpose?
AARP, as the world's largest
organization dedicated to the interests of older citizens, is
committed to using our experience, knowledge and resources to work
with other countries to address these global aging issues. We
will do this:
·
By listening and learning-sharing our
ideas with other countries and learning from their
experiences. As I have worked internationally throughout my
career, I've always been impressed with how other countries apply
best practices within their cultures. It's one thing to
understand what the best practices are; it's quite another to
migrate and adapt them effectively into unique cultures and
understand why they work in one culture and may or may not in
another.
·
Through collaboration-by reaching beyond
our borders to engage leaders of other countries to address policy
challenges and help find solutions, by developing and nurturing
partnerships to address common goals.
·
Through inclusion-reaching out and
addressing the needs of those who are often left behind.
·
And, through our voice-by being a strong
advocate for global aging issues and for creating a society for all
ages that would enable the generations to invest in one another and
share in the fruits of that investment, guided by the twin
principles of reciprocity and equity as called for by the
United Nations.
We're at a pivotal time in our history.
The global economic recession we are experiencing this year is
giving us a glimpse of what it would be like if we have to redefine
our dreams. Nobody wants that. People are hurting. We
see more people struggling to get by. We see people losing the
jobs, their homes, their retirement nest egg, and their health care.
The gap between the haves and the have nots is growing, as it has
for the past 25 years. This is a challenge too great to ignore, not
just in the United States, but throughout the world.
It has been said that reducing inequity
is the highest human achievement. In a world where older
people will outnumber children for the first time in history by
2050, this is also our greatest challenge, and reducing that
inequity is our shared international imperative.
On this International Day of Older
Persons, let us dedicate ourselves to addressing the challenges that
lie ahead and to working together to create a society for all ages.
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Added: Oct 1, 2009
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