MANAV RACHNA INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, LUDHIANA
MRIS MUN 2023
Background
guide
Committee: WHO - world health
organisation
Agenda: Discussion on ageing and health
development
ABOUT THE COMMITTEE
What is WHO?
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialised agency of
the United Nations responsible for international public health. It is
headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has six regional offices
and 150 field offices worldwide.
The WHO was established on 7 April 1948 and convened its first
meeting on 24 July of that year. It incorporated the assets,
personnel, and duties of the League of Nations' Health Organization
and the Paris-based Office international d’Hygiène Publique,
including the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). The
agency's work began in earnest in 1951 after a significant infusion
of financial and technical resources.
The WHO's official mandate is to promote health and safety while
helping the vulnerable worldwide. It provides technical assistance to
countries, sets international health standards, collects data on
global health issues, and serves as a forum for scientific or policy
discussions related to health. Its official publication, the World
Health Report, provides assessments of worldwide health topics.
MORE ON World Health Organisation
WHO leads global efforts to expand universal health coverage. We
direct and coordinate the world’s response to health emergencies.
And we promote healthier lives – from pregnancy care through old
age. Our Triple Billion targets outline an ambitious plan for the world
to achieve good health for all using science-based policies and
programmes.
• WHO’s work remains firmly rooted in the basic principles of the
right to health and well-being for all people, as outlined in our
1948 Constitution. The World Health Assembly is the decision-
making body of WHO and is attended by delegations from all
Member States.
• WHO is committed to the principle of accountability – a core value
for an organization that is
entrusted by countries and
other donors to use limited
resources effectively to
protect and improve global
health.
About the Agenda
People worldwide are living longer. Today most people can expect
to live into their sixties and beyond. Every country in the world is
experiencing growth in both the size and the proportion of older
persons in the population.
By 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 years or over. At
this time the share of the population aged 60 years and over will
increase from 1 billion in 2020 to 1.4 billion. By 2050, the world’s
population of people aged 60 years and older will double (2.1
billion). The number of persons aged 80 years or older is expected
to triple between 2020 and 2050 to reach 426 million.
While this shift in distribution of a country's population towards older
ages – known as population ageing – started in high-income
countries (for example in Japan 30% of the population is already
over 60 years old), it is now low- and middle-income countries that
are experiencing the greatest change. By 2050, two-thirds of the
world’s population over 60 years will live in low- and middle-income
countries.
Key factors related to ageing and
health
•All countries face major challenges to
ensure that their health and social
systems are ready to make the most
of this demographic shift.
•In 2050, 80% of older people will be
living in low- and middle-income
countries.
• The pace of population ageing is much faster than in the past.
• In 2020, the number of people aged 60 years and older
outnumbered children younger than 5 years.
• Between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world's
population over 60 years will nearly double from 12% to 22%.
Common health conditions associated with ageing
Common conditions in older age include hearing loss, cataracts and
refractive errors, back and neck pain and osteoarthritis, chronic
obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, depression and dementia.
As people age, they are more likely to experience several
conditions at the same time.
Older age is also characterized by the emergence of several
complex health states commonly called geriatric syndromes. They
are often the consequence of multiple underlying factors and
include frailty, urinary incontinence, falls, delirium and pressure
ulcers.
Factors that in uence ageing
A longer life brings with it opportunities, not only for older people
and their families, but also for societies as a whole. Additional years
provide the chance to pursue new activities such as further
education, a new career or a long-neglected passion. Older people
also contribute in many ways to their families and communities. Yet
the extent of these opportunities and contributions depends heavily
on one factor: health.
Evidence suggests that the proportion of life in good health has
remained broadly constant, implying that the additional years are in
poor health. If people can experience these extra years of life in
good health and if they live in a supportive environment, their ability
to do the things they value will be little different from that of a
younger person. If these added years are dominated by declines in
physical and mental capacity, the implications for older people and
for society are more negative.
Although some of the variations in older people’s health are genetic,
most is due to people’s physical and social environments –
including their homes, neighbourhoods, and communities, as well
as their personal characteristics – such as their sex, ethnicity, or
socioeconomic status. The environments that people live in as
children – or even as developing fetuses – combined with their
personal characteristics, have long-term effects on how they age.
fl
Physical and social environments can affect health directly or
through barriers or incentives that affect opportunities, decisions
and health behaviour. Maintaining healthy behaviours throughout
life, particularly eating a balanced diet, engaging in regular physical
activity and refraining from tobacco use, all contribute to reducing
the risk of non-communicable diseases, improving physical and
mental capacity and delaying care dependency.
Supportive physical and social environments also enable people to
do what is important to them, despite losses in capacity. The
availability of safe and accessible public buildings and transport,
and places that are easy to walk around, are examples of
supportive environments. In developing a public-health response to
ageing, it is important not just to consider individual and
environmental approaches that ameliorate the losses associated
with older age, but also those that may reinforce recovery,
adaptation and psychosocial growth.
CONCLUSION
WHO’s Response towards Ageing and Health Development
United Nations (UN) General Assembly declared 2021–2030 the
UN Decade of Healthy Ageing and asked WHO to lead the
implementation. The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing is a global
collaboration bringing together governments, civil society,
international agencies, professionals, academia, the media and the
private sector for 10 years of concerted, catalytic and collaborative
action to foster longer and healthier lives.
The Decade builds on the WHO Global Strategy and Action Plan
and the United Nations Madrid International Plan of Action on
Ageing and supports the realization of the United Nations Agenda
2030 on Sustainable Development and the Sustainable
Development Goals.
The UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030) seeks to reduce
health inequities and improve the lives of older people, their families
and communities through collective action in four areas: changing
how we think, feel and act towards age and ageism; developing
communities in ways that foster the abilities of older people;
delivering person-centred integrated care and primary health
services responsive to older people; and providing older people
who need it with access to quality long-term care.