"Attempt five questions in all, question number one is compulsory"... At medical school we used to leave the difficult exam questions until the end or not bother at all, if we had the choice. While going through the draft...
This week I continue with Rosaleen's quest for positive stories on ageing in the media. I spend a large part of my work day going through articles, blogs and alerts and it can be disheartening. Older people aren't necessarily...
Why are so many older women and men going hungry? Older people are key producers and providers of food. Both older women and men work on the land. A high proportion of small farmers in developing countries are older...
I knew we had at least two things in common before walking into the UN Commission on Social Development together: we both care about older people and we are both attending our very first UN meeting. For Kenneth, a...
Amigos Me permito recordarles aquel "momentum" en Brasilia, durante la reuni n de gobiernos de la regi n, cuando se hac a la evaluaci n de la Estrategia Regional de ejecuci n del Plan de Acci n Mundial sobre...
I am currently at the Commission for Social Development, held at the UN in New York. It's looking a little old on the outside, the paving stones are broken, the 1950s interior has lost much of its glamour and...
Is the world beginning to take notice of global ageing? The message that extended life expectancy, falling fertility rates and accelerating ageing are now truly global phenomena seems to be getting a wider hearing, and in the past few...
Rains are rare in Thar Desert of India. Not often does one see lush green landscape, freshly filled ponds and rivulets. In the absence or shortage of rains, Thar is usually not a pretty sight. Barren and brown, lifeless...
Two weeks ago, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) announced that global food prices were at their highest level on record. Then a few days ago, a major UK government report on the global food system, the Global...
A defining moment for the South Sudanese people, the Sudan referendum is bound to have major implications for the African continent and rest of the world. Steering away from the usual political and social analysis of what could soon...
This evening, I have just returned from an excellent and moving film screening in London for Holocaust Memorial Day. The day is marked on January 27, the day that the Nazis’ most notorious and deadly concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau in...
"If young women's lives and children's lives are important, why not an older woman's?" I'm always highly cynical of when people write or talk about their "awakening" moment, their "a-ha moment". Maybe I'm just envious because I don't ever...
