International Year of Older Persons, 1999

Encourages States that have not yet done so to establish a national focal point or broad-based committee for the Year, and re-emphasizes that activities for the Year should be initiated primarily at the national level; recommends that the Commission for Social Development should mainstream the issue of older persons into the work of the Commission and the preparatory work for the special session of the General Assembly to review the World Summit for Social Development in the year 2000; calls upon States, UN agencies and bodies and institutions of civil society to avoid age and gender bias in their treatment of older women so as to ensure that all older women have equal access to the private sector and to social services and to ensure their full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms; urges that the issue of older persons be mainstreamed into the work of UN and national socio-economic programmes and plans; invites DPI of the Secretariat to continue its information campaign, intensifying its activities in Jan. 1999 in support of countries that were unable to launch to observances of the Year on 1 Oct. 1998; recommends that research agendas for the next decades address the socio-economic adjustments required to move towards a society for all ages, focusing essentially on the lifelong and society-wide immediate and long-term implications of individual and population ageing within varied national contexts; requests States to participate in the 4 plenary meetings which, in resolution 52/80 of 12 Dec. 1997, it decided to devote at its 54th session to the Year and its follow-up.

Adopted without vote, 85th meeting

4 p.

Adopted at the 85th plenary meeting, 9 Dec. 1998.