Joint Declaration on Active and Healthy Ageing Cooperation
We, the leaders of the People’s Republic of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, gather at the China-Japan-Korea Summit on MMDD, 2019 in Chengdu, China;
Reaffirming our efforts to implement global and regional commitments on active and healthy ageing, including active and healthy ageing related in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the UN Principles for Older Persons (1991), and the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (2002);
Recalling the World Health Assembly (WHA) Resolution 69.3 (2016) on the Global Strategy and Action Plan on Ageing and Health 2016-2020, towards a world in which everyone can live a long and healthy life;
Recalling the proposal of active and healthy ageing by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, whose core concepts are physical health, mental health and good adaptation to the society;
Acknowledging the accomplishments made in exchanges and cooperation regarding population ageing, and commitments made in the Joint Statements adopted by previous Tripartite Health Ministers’ Meetings;
Acknowledging the Tripartite Active and Healthy Ageing Policy Dialogue as a useful platform to share policies, experiences and best practices on active and healthy ageing;
Noting the significant rise in the population over 65 in the three countries since the 20th century and the sharp increase in government expenditure on medical services and long-term care, and the necessity of responding appropriately to the impacts they have posed to the economic and social development; and
Emphasizing that China, Japan and Korea should actively respond to population ageing by implementing related national strategies and taking concrete steps to strengthen international cooperation;
We hereby declare to:
1. Place active and healthy ageing as one of the priorities in our national strategies, encourage and support the integration of active and healthy ageing into related national policies and action plans, including medium and long-term development plans on national economy, public health, health service delivery, healthcare reform and social security system, so as to integrate the concept of active and healthy ageing into policies and measures of all levels of the government;
2. Emphasize the importance of active and healthy ageing by taking the life course perspective, noting that all factors with health implications should be managed in a comprehensive and systematical way from the early stages of life, including efforts to create an ageing-friendly environment; which will ultimately lead to prolonging healthy life expectancy, maintaining body functions and improving the well-being of the senior population;
3. Underscore the importance of multi-sectoral approach in addressing population ageing by encouraging related sectors to clarify their objectives and responsibilities in this area, by allocating adequate budget and by strengthening inter-sectoral coordination, monitoring, evaluation and reporting mechanisms;
4. Promote the provision of necessary, appropriate, comprehensive and continuous medical and long-term care for the elderly, including efforts to improve equity and accessibility of medical and long-term care services, all of which are part of our endeavor towards achieving universal health coverage (UHC); support comprehensive inclusion of services for the elderly in promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative basic health services, including effective approaches for mental health, especially those with dementia;
5. Promote the autonomy of the elderly, in conjunction with practicing efforts to fully protect their rights, freedom, benefits and dignity, and oppose all discrimination such as ageism; raise public awareness on issues and challenges of ageing to all ages and promote inter-generational solidarity; and
6. Encourage China, Japan and Korea to further strengthen policy dialogue and exchange each other’s experiences on promoting active and healthy ageing, also including cooperative research on issues related to active and healthy ageing; seek to establish long-term mechanisms for cooperation; work towards shaping a successful model to cope with population ageing in the region, cooperate with other countries and regions across the world through, for example, providing best practices.
