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|  Executive
Speeches
On the Occasion of the Second World
Assembly on Ageing
Madrid - 8 April 2002
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates:
Bernard Baruch, once the UN's quintessential elder
statesman, was not a demographer. But he knew a few
things about the ageing process. Sometime before his
85th birthday, Baruch - who lived to be 95 - was asked
to define old age. That's easy, he said. "Old age
is always 15 years older than I am."
Ambassador Baruch lived in a far less youth-centred
cultural milieu than now exists in many countries. Indeed,
when a newspaper reporter wrote in 1946 that Baruch
looked "like everyone's grandfather," that
was meant as a compliment.
Even today, Baruch's long career - including his work
as US delegate to the UN's first nuclear disarmament
agency - is a testament to the limitless opportunities
that exist for people of all ages to contribute to society.
Yet more than 50 years later, ominous clouds are gathering.
By the middle of the 21st century, UN demographers say,
adults over 60 will equal or even slightly outnumber
the world's children - a first in human history, but
one that carries the prospect of heightened intergenerational
strife over everything from economic growth, labour
markets and pensions to health care, family living arrangements,
and transfers of wealth and property.
Indeed, some developing countries are already feeling
the turbulence, as development imperatives come up against
the equally urgent demands of a rapidly ageing population.
As Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO's Director General,
put it: "We must be fully aware that while the
developed countries became rich before they became old,
the developing countries will become old before they
become rich."
Mr. President, if we are to fulfil the recommitment
of last month's Monterrey Conference to make the benefits
of globalisation accessible to all, societies will have
to forge bold new approaches.
That is why UNICEF strongly supports the call for
intergenerational solidarity at the national, community
and especially family levels.
Children and the elderly are among the most excluded
and marginalised groups - and they already make up a
majority of the 1.3 billion people trapped in the worst
poverty on earth.
The physical, emotional and intellectual impairment
that poverty inflicts on children can mean a lifetime
of suffering and want - and a legacy of poverty for
the next generation. Investing in children and mothers
today will ensure the well-being and productivity of
succeeding generations for decades to come.
Now the world is awakening to the realisation that
the elderly are also a priceless but largely untapped
and under-appreciated resource. Mr. President, this
conference has highlighted the fact that in bringing
their skills and experience to the workplace, to public
life, and to their families, older people can help advance
the cause of social and economic development - and in
the process, inspire younger people to follow their
example.
The prospect of establishing an intergenerational
dialogue between the young and the old is thus immensely
important, for it represents a unique opportunity to
set a new and swifter course toward human development.
Within families, the role of older people as caregivers
brings stability and continuity to children's lives.
It is a role that has assumed life-and-death dimensions
in sub-Saharan Africa, where millions of grandparents
are struggling to care for young children whose parents
have fallen victim to HIV/AIDS.
Mr. President, this Second World Assembly on Ageing
has focused on why we must work to meet the basic needs
of all members of society, with special emphasis on
protecting the rights of children and women - including
elderly women, who make up a rapidly expanding majority
of adults over the age of 60.
It is children, women and the elderly who bear the
heaviest burden of poverty - a burden made more onerous
by the catastrophic spread of HIV/AIDS, by the proliferation
of armed conflict and terrorism; and by the paralysing
effects of external debt, gender-based discrimination
and violence, environmental degradation and natural
disasters.
Young and old alike are already working to turn the
tide - millions of them as volunteers who lend hands-on
support to national immunisation campaigns; who help
in emergencies and a myriad of other tasks; and who
advocate, teach, raise funds and public awareness. All
are in the forefront of improving the human condition,
especially for children.
That is why UNICEF and its partners so value the work
of volunteers, whose willingness to help others, in
a spirit of reciprocity, has been at the heart of UNICEF's
efforts to serve the best interests of children since
the agency's creation more than half a century ago.
Indeed, the work of UNICEF's 37 National Committees,
which play a crucial role in raising public awareness
as well as funds, is supported by more than 100,000
volunteers throughout Europe, North America and elsewhere.
Mr. President, exactly one month from today, on May
8th, the General Assembly will convene its Special Session
on Children - the biggest and most momentous gathering
on child rights since the World Summit for Children
more than a decade ago.
The 1990 World Summit - and the nearly universal ratification
of the Convention on the Rights of the Child - ushered
in a decade that brought major reductions in iodine
deficiency disorders through salt iodisation; an immunisation
drive that has brought polio to the brink of eradication;
widespread provision of Vitamin A supplements, and progress
in promoting the many benefits of breastfeeding.
Those accomplishments showed what can be done when
commitments are matched by resources and political will.
Now, in the Special Session, we have an opportunity
to build on that spirit to complete the Summit goals
in basic education, under-5 mortality, maternal mortality,
and child malnutrition - and in the process, to mobilise
a global alliance dedicated to achieving a breakthrough
in human development based on specific actions for children.
That is why UNICEF and its partners have been working
to mobilise a Global Movement for Children - a worldwide
campaign to build a shared sense of responsibility for
the well-being of every child on earth.
The Global Movement is aimed at enlisting not only
established leaders, but people of influence representing
every part of civil society, from non-governmental organisations,
religious groups and private enterprise to people's
movements, academia and the media, community and grassroots
groups, families - and children themselves.
Mr. President, Distinguished Delegates: UNICEF is
convinced that we can alter the course of human development
by decisively shifting investments, both governmental
and private, to fulfil child needs and rights - and
thus lay the foundation for a world where every child
can grow up in health, peace and dignity.
Development is about building that better world -
and as this Assembly has demonstrated, both young and
old are central to the process.
Thank you.
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