A/HRC/41/32 promote access to and broader participation in lifelong learning. Similarly, in its 2015 Recommendation concerning Technical and Vocational Education and Training, which is aimed at empowering individuals and promoting employment, decent work and lifelong learning, UNESCO recommends that Member States take measures to ensure that all youth and adults have equal opportunities to learn, develop and enhance their knowledge, skills and competencies by transforming and expanding technical and vocational education and training in all its forms to address the great diversity of learning and training needs. 40. The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, as one of the key education-related institutes of UNESCO and the only organizational unit within the United Nations system with a global mandate for lifelong learning, promotes and supports lifelong learning with a focus on adult learning, continuing education, literacy and non-formal basic education. In its activities, particular emphasis is placed on furthering educational equity for disadvantaged groups and in the countries most afflicted by poverty and conflict. The Institute supports the strengthening of Member States’ capacity to improve the quality of their lifelong learning policies and strategies for building inclusive lifelong learning systems, through policy review, policy dialogue and the provision of capacity development to key national stakeholders. 41. ECE issued a policy brief on lifelong learning,9 in which it highlighted good practices from across the region and made several recommendations, including the need to promote gender-sensitive education programmes, since older women might have different educational needs than older men. ECLAC provided technical support to the Government of Brazil and contributed to the discussion on the issue of continuing education and nondiscrimination on the basis of age in terms of access to digital technology. G. Combating all forms of discrimination against older persons 42. Age discrimination and the prevalence of ageism constitute a major obstacle to the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons and their active contribution to society. Equality and non-discrimination are hallmarks of all international human rights instruments, as well as of relevant regional instruments. However, the absence of explicit references to age as a prohibited basis for discrimination in the existing international and regional instruments renders the protection against age discrimination less visible. For example, among more than 13,000 recommendations related to discrimination classified under the Universal Human Rights Index, less than 1 per cent concern age discrimination against older persons. In recent years, more attention has been paid by the United Nations system and partners, including the Open-ended Working Group on Ageing, to address the multiple challenges of discrimination, abuse and violence against older persons, especially women, who tend to suffer from intersectional discrimination and bear the brunt of the cumulative effects of gender and other forms of discrimination endured throughout the course of their lives. 43. Since 2016, at the request of Member States (see World Health Assembly resolution 69.3), WHO has been developing a global campaign to combat ageism and investing efforts in three key areas: (a) gathering evidence on ageism (i.e., how it is defined, how it is experienced, how it is measured, what its consequences are and what strategies exist to tackle it) and on how to conduct a campaign to tackle ageism (i.e., what works and what doesn’t work); (b) building a global coalition of stakeholders to lead the way towards a non-ageist world; and (c) raising awareness of the need to tackle ageism. In 2018, WHO led a highly specialized workshop on ageism at the Global Conference on Ageing organized by the International Federation on Ageing in Canada, and contributed to a similar workshop at the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics European Region Congress, held in Sweden in 2019. The workshops aimed at engaging participants in discussions on the concept of ageism, the most recent evidence on the impact of ageism on older persons and existing strategies to tackle the phenomenon. They were also aimed at generating ideas about how people could apply existing evidence and resources in formulating better 9 ECE, “Lifelong learning”, Policy brief on ageing No. 5, March 2010. 11