Distinguished Delegates, Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to 2016 International Seminar for South South Cooperation on Healthy Ageing at Hangzhou, China; jointly organized by the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), in cooperation with Partners in Population and Development (PPD) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Unprecedented in the human history, globally both developed and developing countries are experiencing the demographic shift of increasing number of older people in the proportion of the total population. As a result, between 2015 and 2030, the number of people in the world aged 60 years or over is projected to grow by 56%, from 901 million to 1.4 billion, and by 2050, the global population of older persons is projected to more than double its size in 2015, reaching nearly 2.1 billion.

Partners in Population Development (PPD) is an inter-governmental organization of 26 member countries and this 26 member countries total aged 60 or over population is 442 million which is 49% of the total aged population of the globe, projected to be 752 million in 2030 which is 53.38% and 1.2 billion in 2050. Also, half of the PPD member countries aged 60 or over population is crossed 7% in 2015,  ( Thailand, China, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Colombia, Viet Nam, Morocco, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Egypt, South Africa and Bangladesh) and 17 of the PPD Member countries aged 60 or over population will be more than 10% in 2050 (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Ethiopia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Egypt , Jordan , Morocco  ,Tunisia , Columbia, and Mexico).

Currently, fifteen of PPD member countries have national policy of older people and PPD is doing strong advocacy with other member countries to establish older people focused national policy and program for ensuring healthy ageing, through PPD’s Global Commission on Ageing in Developing Countries. Also, under the umbrella of the Global commission of Ageing, PPD already initiate to develop “Country situation report on ageing” and nine member countries’ (China, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa and Vietnam) ageing reports are in the process of finalization. Also, gradually PPD will do 26 member countries “Country situation report on ageing”.

Ladies and Gentleman
The Objective of this Seminar is to exchange experience and explore future strategies for the integrated medical care with home care for the elderly so as to promote the healthy ageing in the developing countries. Older people often have complex, chronic conditions, to meet these needs required greater integration by health and social care providers. Finding efficient and effective ways to care for the elderly is always an important issue; in that case, the integrated medical care with home care could be a solution.

Care of the elderly has been a particular focus of integration efforts because of the very high proportion of seniors with one or more chronic conditions, their high use of health care services and the growth in the elderly population. The goals of integrated care efforts have been to improve accessibility, quality of care and financial sustainability .

This three days seminar holding five sessions, comprehending on Theory and Policy Development, Building Service System for the Aged, Advancing Integration of Medical Care and Social Service, Creating Age-friendly Environment and Information – Technology Support, on Healthy Ageing, will provide us more in-depth knowledge and information on the integrated medical care with home care for the elderly. I strongly believe that, this seminar will give us scope to exchange experience and explore future strategies on healthy ageing.

Promoting healthy ageing in developing countries is one of the PPD’ core area of concern.  There is a great deal of scope for applying PPD’s South to South Cooperation frame work in promoting health ageing.

Healthy ageing could be promoted through, advocacy & policy development,   Global health and population diplomacy, Capacity development and technical cooperation, Knowledge management and by developing Partnerships and relationships

Ladies and Gentleman for ensuring healthy ageing

• We need strong coordination among PPD’s Member countries along with others developing countries for exchanging best practices on healthy ageing under the leadership of PPD’s Global Commission on Ageing.
• Needs a Structural Framework of Integrated Care with home care for the Elderly that will help us to design integrated programs for ensuring efficient and effective ways of healthy ageing. Also, needs to do strong advocacy for the establishment of policies, standards and regulations for the integration of health care and nursing services for the elderly.
• Need to do advocacy for opening ageing focus research and education institutions, those will give us future direction on the activities of healthy ageing. (Like, in October 2016, Ghana established Center for Ageing Studies which will be focused solely on ageing related research and education at the University of Ghana ). Also this will give us scope of exchanging and sharing technology and knowledge.
• PPD is advocating among its members to strongly consider protection of the rights of older persons in their socio economic policy frameworks and appropriate resource support for addressing issues related to programmers on healthy ageing. Therefore, in this platform, PPD is urging to the global community for bringing attention on ageing which is to some extent neglected in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), though SDGs advocating for e disaggregated data, data on ageing population is scanty and sketchy.

I am looking forward to your active participation in this Seminar and very confident that together we will be able to find efficient and effective plan and programs to ensure healthy ageing to ensure rights and wellbeing of elderly people.