A/HRC/33/44 Argentina and Slovenia launched the Group of Friends on the human rights of older persons. 14. In accordance with her mandate, the Independent Expert continued to pay attention to specific groups of older persons, including refugees and climate-displaced persons, as well as persons facing conflict, emergency or disaster situations. On 15 March 2016, on the occasion of World Social Work Day, the International Association of Schools of Social Work and the International Federation of Social Workers organized a conference in Geneva entitled “Refugees and Displaced Persons: the Role of Social Work”. The Independent Expert contributed to the panel discussion on forced migration and the role of social work, highlighting the disproportionate impact emergency situations have on older persons. The need to build older persons’ resilience in disaster situations was also the focus of the Independent Expert’s contribution at the Climate Displacement Roundtable organized in Geneva on 25 and 26 April 2016 by Displacement Solutions and the Global Migration Centre of the Graduate Institute Geneva. 15. On 3 and 4 May 2016, the Independent Expert participated in the Human Rights Working Group Dialogue Series on Frontier Issues of the United Nations Development Group on the issue of Human Rights and Urbanization in New York, which was jointly organized by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and OHCHR, under the auspices of the United Nations Housing Rights Programme. In the dialogue session, discussions focused on ways in which strengthened enjoyment of human rights in cities for all can facilitate strategic, sustainable and inclusive solutions, with a view to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Also discussed was the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), to be held in Quito in October 2016, which will result in a new urban agenda to guide inclusive, integrated and sustainable urbanization for the next 20 years. She also participated in the Habitat III cross-cutting expert group meeting on human rights and urbanization, organized by OHCHR. At those meetings, the Independent Expert called, inter alia, for the participation of older persons in the design of urban form and urban infrastructure to ensure that they address the needs for social and sustainable cities in which people can live and work, and that older persons benefit from elder care in their neighbourhood. 16. The Independent Expert also actively advocated for human rights to be taken into consideration at the first World Humanitarian Summit, which was held from 23 to 24 May 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey, to improve the protection of older persons affected by conflict, disaster and displacement. III. Human rights of older persons A. Background 17. Older persons represent a large, and the fastest growing, segment of the global population. By 2050, for the first time, there will be more older persons than children under the age of 15 worldwide, and it is projected that the number of older persons will more than double from 900 million currently to nearly 2 billion.1 A demographic transformation of such magnitude has far-reaching implications for society at all levels. 1 GE.16-11742 See www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/popfacts/PopFacts_20144Rev1.pdf. 5