Organising partners

Covenant on Demographic Change

What does the Covenant aim to achieve?

To engage local and regional authorities in developing environments for active and healthy ageing that:

- increase healthy life year expectancy,

- enhance opportunities for independent living of older people and

- support a society for all ages.

How will the Covenant achieve its aims?

The Covenant will be established as an international non-profit association under Belgian law. It will be open to all interested parties (i.e. local, regional and national authorities, as well as civil society organisations, industries, research centres and universities) that voluntarily commit to making age-friendly environments a reality in their communities and to share their experience with other Covenant members.

The Covenant will connect and align with existing initiatives such as the World Health Organisation Global Network on Age-Friendly Cities and Communities (GNAFCC) and its affiliated programmes, the WHO-European Healthy Cities Network, the Dublin Declaration on age-friendly cities and communities in Europe and the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing (EIP AHA).

EUROCITIES Urban Ageing working group

Chair: Anne Berit Rafoss, City of Oslo, special advisor

The working group on urban ageing wants to raise awareness and improve strategies for age-friendly environments in cities.

Objectives for 2017 are:

- continue collaboration on urban ageing through working group meetings, which include a business section to discuss possible projects, funding or lobby opportunities and topical discussions and relevant site visits. Explore further collaboration between working group members, with other working groups within Eurocities and share and disseminate good practices. Continued secretariat support needed.
- continue collaboration with the WHO on urban ageing through their concept of age friendly cities, invite them to meetings and explore if and how the working group could be a European affiliate of the WHO. (consider role of AGE platform)
- working with the European Commission on active and healthy ageing, notably through their program European Innovation Program on Active and healthy ageing (EIP-AHA), where Eurocities is a member of one of the action groups and several members of the working group are also part of an innovative region.

ENSA Elderly working group
Coordination Stockholm Malar Region Municipality of Nacka, Kerstin Seipel

Most European countries are facing the same challenge in the increasing elderly population. The working group is sharing experiences and knowledge from research, best practice and study visits in this field.

The working group is currently focused on:

active healthy ageing
nutrition – pleasurable meals
new innovative technologies for the elderly / disabled.
fall and injury prevention

Recently the meeting was hosted by ISRAA in Treviso (Italy) in cooperation with a conference on, among other topics, housing – ageing in place. Last year in November the working group met in Paris (France) in cooperation with a conference hosted by Pôle Allongement de la Vie Charles Foix on nutrition and well- being for elderly with different diagnosis.

The ENSA also joined the Covenant of mayors on Demographic Change in 2015. The covenant is aiming to gather all local, regional and national authorities, and other stakeholders, that commit to cooperate and implement evidence-based solutions to support active and healthy ageing as a comprehensive answer to Europe’s demographic challenge. The Covenant on Demographic Change was launched on 7 December 2015 at the Committee of the Regions (Brussels), with the support of the European Commission and the AFEINNOVNET (network on innovation and ageing).

The working group is following SIHA´s - Senior International Health Association – work of health rights, for example adherence to treatment, pain relief treatments and nutrition.

The working group would like to share experiences and call for best practices and contributions in relation active healthy ageing.

If you have proposals and/or European projects on the theme please send your inputs to Kerstin Seipel kerstin.seipel@nacka.se, +46 070 431 76 00

ELISAN

Elisan, the European Local Inclusion and Social Action Network is a network of elected representatives set up with

the support of the Committee of the Regions, with participatory status at the Council of Europe. This body promotes

awareness of social actions at local level and seeks answers to social needs and rights issues.