MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Governments need to address aging issues, ECLAC insists

“We must promote the inclusion of aging in government agendas by adapting and modernizing legislation,” Salazar-Xirinachs said

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) urged governments in the region this week to address the issue of aging people during the V Regional Conference on Aging and the Rights of Older Persons in Santiago.

The international agency urged countries to promote population aging on their agendas. “We must promote the inclusion of aging in government agendas by adapting and modernizing legislation and strengthening the institutions responsible for coordinating national policies on aging,” said ECLAC Executive Secretary José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, who is committed to universalizing the access of the elderly to social protection and quality health services.

According to ECLAC, 662 million people live in the region in 2022, 13.4 % of whom (88.6 million individuals) are over 60 years of age. By 2030 this proportion will increase to 16.5 percent of the total population and by 2050 the elderly will account for 25.1 % of the total population.

Salazar-Xirinachs stressed that Latin America and the Caribbean have a powerful set of instruments that are a sign of commitment to the implementation of the Madrid International Action Plan coupled with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the United Nations Decade for Healthy Aging 2021-2030.

“We must promote the inclusion of aging in government agendas by adapting and modernizing legislation and strengthening the institutions responsible for coordinating national policies on aging,” Salazar-Xirinachs urged attendees.

UN Coordinator in Chile María José Torres Macho said that older people face multidisciplinary challenges that encompass not only the issue of poverty and access to healthcare services but also those related to the exercise of their political, social, and environmental rights.