Every year, the World Health Day is celebrated on 7th April to mark the anniversary of the founding of World Health Organization in 1948. The topic of World Health Day in the year 2012 is Ageing and Health with the theme “Good health adds life to years”. The focus is how good health throughout life can help older men and women lead full and productive lives and are a resource for their families and communities. For more details, please follow : http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2012/WHO_DCO_WHD_2012.1_eng.pdf
The world’s elderly population – people 60 years of age and older – is 650 million. By 2050, the “graying” population is forecast to reach 2 billion. World Health Organization’s report shows that by 2050, 80% of the world’s older people will be living in low and middle-income countries. Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean are the world’s fastest aging regions, with the percent of elderly in both regions projected to double between 2000 and 2050. Even sub-Saharan Africa, which has the smallest proportion of elderly and which is aging slower than any other region, is projected to see the absolute size of its older population grow by 2.3 times between 2000 and 2050. However, developing countries have less economic resources to provide adequate support for their elderly people. Most especially, the health care systems in developing countries are still not adequately focusing on the increasing demand for the ageing population.
PPD as an intergovernmental organization of developing countries, believes that South-South Cooperation and North –South Cooperation would be an effective strategy for the developing countries to counterbalance the impact of this demographic shift and other changes on the traditional support systems. We urge policymakers from PPD Member Countries to invest in systems that would encourage and facilitate the elderly to stay in employment much longer, save more for the retirement period and be able to rely on public pension and health care programs to meet their needs fully.