A/HRC/24/25 mention age discrimination explicitly, but it provides for the possibility of determining additional grounds of discrimination, such as age. ILO social security standards, most particularly the Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention, 1952 (No. 102), and the recent Social Protection Floors Recommendation, 2012 (No. 202) provide an international reference framework for the range and levels of social security benefits that are necessary and adequate for ensuring income maintenance and income security, as well as access to health care throughout the life cycle. A number of other conventions are also important to promote and protect the rights of older persons. 44. The transition between an active life and retirement needed to be progressive, allowing for voluntary retirement and coupled with provisions for making the pensionable age flexible, thereby giving greater freedom to persons to decide on the age at which they wish to stop working. In addition, the other important social policy challenge was the need to secure an adequate level of income for all persons in old age without overstretching the capacities of younger generations. 45. The recent ILO Recommendation No. 202 completed this framework by calling for the guarantee of basic income security for all persons in old age for countries at all levels of development. It also made a significant contribution to the realization of the minimum core content of the right to social security. It was particularly relevant for low- and middleincome countries where a large part of the workforce was concentrated in the informal sector, but also for high-income countries where the recent financial crisis had shown that there was still a need to ensure a minimum of income security for older generations in some form of State guarantee of a minimum pension level. 46. Ms. Araujo de Carvalho argued that realizing the right to health implied that policymaking and programming should be guided by human rights standards and principles in tandem with the development of the capacities of duty bearers to meet their obligations and of the capacity of rights holders to claim their rights. This translated into building a knowledge base that would allow policymakers to develop and implement policies and programmes that addressed the health needs of older persons. 47. Ageing was frequently not prioritized in health plans and strategies, data were not age-disaggregated in health situation analysis, and age was not considered a category for analysis in monitoring, evaluation and accountability mechanisms in health planning and programming. 48. The health of older persons needed to be specifically addressed in initiatives to strengthen health systems and in primary health-care reform frameworks. Policy guidance to achieve universal coverage was particularly relevant because older persons were usually excluded, particularly when coverage depended on previous contributions. Targeted interventions could be an alternative to complementing universal mechanisms, for example to tackle dementia and hypertension as health priorities. 49. It was also necessary to increase visibility of unequal access to health care. Disability and disease affected more people in developing countries, and States should adopt measures to improve the situation of the population, and specifically older persons. Health services should be targeted at the major causes of poor health in older persons, such as non-communicable diseases. Primary health-care centres had to better meet the needs of their older patients. They could serve as an entry point for referrals for specialised care, long-term care, mental health and social services. 50. According to Ms. Araujo, the main challenges for States were (a) to put in place information systems to strengthen the knowledge base and to facilitate the use of evidence in policy development; (b) to build a critical mass of capacity for change, as capacitybuilding of rights holders and duty bearers was critical, especially on health equity analysis 11

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents