A/HRC/45/14 implementation and monitoring mechanism, with a view to distilling lessons for the ongoing efforts towards the adoption of global standards. It explored alternative treaty body monitoring mechanisms, seeking to forge consensus as a concrete input into the negotiations at the level of the Open-ended Working Group on Ageing. This also served to prepare a hackathon road map on the human rights of older persons 4 to identify innovative solutions that could be adopted in this regard. 10. On 18 November 2019, the mandate briefed the Intergovernmental Working Group on Ageing of the Economic Commission for Europe on the findings and recommendations with regard to older persons in humanitarian emergency situations. The briefing was part of the Working Group’s own discussions on the same topic, and had been convened to inform the Commission’s Policy Brief No. 25 on Older Persons in Emergency Situations. 5 11. On 17 and 18 December 2019, the mandate participated in the first-ever Global Refugee Forum, which was held in Geneva. The engagement provided an opportunity to further disseminate the findings and recommendations in the Independent Expert’s report on older persons in emergency situations (A/HRC/42/43) to the expert constituency of the Forum, and also served as a basis for concrete pledges to promote and protect the human rights of forcibly displaced older persons, as part of building more inclusive societies. 12. On 21 January 2020, the mandate holder participated in a webinar meeting with the International Telecommunication Union and the inter-agency group on ageing, which focused on information and communications technologies and older persons. This was an opportunity to further disseminate the mandate’s accumulated findings from various analyses and to share specific recommendations on the potential and risks associated with the advancement of digitalization, from a human rights angle. 13. In the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, the Independent Expert issued a call to exercise solidarity and better protect older persons. She expressed her deep concerns that decisions around the allocation of scarce medical resources may be made solely on the basis of age, and urged that triage protocols be developed and followed to ensure that such decisions were based on medical needs and the best scientific evidence available. The Independent Expert deplored the deep-rooted ageism that the pandemic had brought to the fore. On 28 April 2020, she issued a joint statement with the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Disability and Accessibility, María Soledad Cisternas Reyes, highlighting the disproportionately negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women and girls with disabilities and on older women. 14. In this connection, on 1 May 2020 the Secretary-General of the United Nations launched his Policy Brief on the Impact of COVID-19 on Older Persons, highlighting the untold fear and suffering for older persons across the world caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He also stated that the crisis had revealed important gaps in the availability of agespecific data, noting the need for the review of disaggregation protocols for data. Furthermore, he called for the building of stronger legal frameworks at both the national and the international levels to protect the human rights of older persons. 15. The impact of COVID-19 has also marked the initial activities of the new Independent Expert, Claudia Mahler, who took up her duties on 1 May 2020. Against that background, she engaged in a virtual conversation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 12 May 2020 on ways to promote the rights of older persons during these challenging times and on how to move from debate to action. The webinar was organized by the NGO Committee on Ageing. The Permanent Representatives of Chile and of Slovenia, in their respective capacities as chairpersons of the Groups of Friends of the Rights of Older Persons, in New York and in Geneva, addressed the event at the opening and closing. 4 5 This themed creative problem-solving event, which was planned to be held in April 2020 on the margins of the eleventh session of the Open-ended Working Group on Ageing, has been postponed due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19). See ECE/WG.1/2019/RD2. 5