Update on the UN Rights of Older People

From: The Pass It On Network (PION), which connects positive ageing advocates across 60 countries. 

Margaret Young (Age Knowable) joined Moira Allan, PION co-founder and member of the AGE Platform Europe task force, in opening the session with what happened during the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) meeting in Geneva in February. It was the first formal drafting session toward a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.

In 2024, the UN Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing  completed its mandate and with the support of eighty-seven member states the work began. Six sessions are planned — three this year, three in 2027. Civil society organizations can attend and submit, whether or not they hold formal UN status. That's an open door, and Geneva used it. Older people from both the Global North and South were present. The civil society voice was strong enough that the chair of the working group closed the session with a public statement: civil society will outlast all the diplomats in the room — and he needs that voice to keep going. It was, for those who were there, one of those moments.

The model on the table — the destination that gives the work its shape — is the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That treaty changed language, changed law, and changed the conditions of daily life in countries that adopted it. It now has annual sessions where member states must publicly account for their progress. There is a dedicated implementation fund, and an advisory committee made up of people with disabilities. That is the aspiration.

How Anyone Can Contribute 

One of the strongest currents in the discussion was practical: you don't have to go to Geneva to matter in this process. Toolkits exist — through the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People (GAROP) and AGE Platform Europe — with arguments, templates, and guidance. Asking a local government official whether they know this convention is being drafted is a contribution. Asking your national government to hold a public consultation is a contribution. Connecting someone you know to someone else who can open a door is a contribution.

The point was made more than once that we know more people than we think we do. One network member had spent a decade showing up to an international local government network, asking questions, taking notes. This month, she was invited onto a panel at the UN Commission on the Status of Older Women (CSW70), raising the convention in front of an audience that had largely never heard of it. Persistence and presence, over time, create openings.

Another concrete entry point: Margaret has launched a global online survey on human rights principles for older persons with dementia. It grew from a 90-minute consultation — 140 participants from across regions, including people with lived experience, NGOs, and a WHO colleague. The responses will be aggregated and submitted directly to the July Geneva session. 

Amplifying Global Voices  

Two omissions were named in the same breath. The first is geographic: voices from the Global South are underrepresented in the drafting room, for reasons of cost, connectivity, and access. The UN is beginning to open up remote participation. The practical response is to find people, help them prepare, and connect them to platforms where they can speak for themselves. The point was made without softening: as long as others are speaking for older people, it won't work.

The second omission is generational, and it reaches further. The people who will be old in the future — younger people today — have as much at stake in this convention as anyone. They will eventually live inside whatever it creates or fails to create. The convention needs their voices now, not decades from now. And older people, with their accumulated experience of what rights look like in practice, are the ones best placed to make that case. Both are needed.

This is what gave the ambassador's closing words their weight. The Argentinian chair of the working group ended the Geneva session by saying that civil society will outlast all the diplomats in the room, and that he values and needs that continuity. It was a recognition that the work doesn't belong to any single session or delegation. It belongs to the people who keep showing up, across time and across generations.