News

First roundtable meeting of international organizations and stakeholders on global issues and collaboration on long-term care in the context of the 76th World Health Assembly, May 25th 2023

WHO estimates that approximately two-thirds of people who achieve older age are likely to need care and support from others at some point. However, many health and social care systems around the world are currently unable to deliver long-term care services and support to older people who need it, which has been revealed and exacerbated during the COVID-19. It has imposed a devastating impact on the lives of older people and carers and highlighted the challenges in long-term care systems, including the lack of formal long-term care systems, and the unexpectedly growing burden of informal, unpaid family carers.

Given the momentum augmented by the pandemic, there is a growing attention on the long-term care agenda globally. Governments, international agencies and non-state actors are trying to better understand the complex, multi-folded and cross-cutting nature of long-term care, and to identify and implement appropriate and contextualized care models and practices. There is an increasing need and calls for mutual understanding across different stakeholders and sectors globally.

Although many organizations have published reports on multiples issues on long-term care and have convened their meetings and events to advocate at global and regional levels, however, there is a need to have a global-level platform that multiple stakeholders and partners can join and communicate to make synergies. Therefore, this informal roundtable meeting is proposed to provide the opportunity to initiate a loose connection to share ideas and plans, which could help building collaborative activities in the future.

ILO, ISSA, WHO, OECD, UN ECE, and HelpAge International joined the meeting, and each participating agency shared ideas, projects, and plans on LTC. The ILO presented the ILO-ISSA joint working paper titled "Long-term care in the context of population aging: a rights-based approach to universal coverage" and discussed long-term care as an integral part of social protection systems.

A roundtable discussion on opportunities and collaboration was also conducted, covering the following topics:
What are the key issues that are needed and would benefit global collaboration and coordination?
What can be the mechanisms or platform for further collaboration?
In the future, the interagency LTC group will be regularly organized to seek potential collaboration within the LTC community, including mapping all global projects, data, and more.