Photo shows (from L to R): Thelma Kay, Chief, Emerging Social Issues Division, ESCAP; Rajwant Sandhu, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, India; Chui Sai On, Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Macao, China; Ip Peng Kin, President, Social Welfare Institute, Macao, China during the opening of the Seminar.

An increase in intergenerational social tensions owing to migration and weak social protection schemes, a weakening of traditional support systems that had ensured social cohesion in the past, growing economic and social concerns… These are among the bleak prospects likely to materialize in the face of the rapid population ageing occurring in Asia, as raised by a recent ESCAP seminar held from 18 to 21 October in Macao, China.
Population ageing is occurring at a rapid pace in the low-fertility countries of Asia, while the transition from the young-age population to the ageing population occurred over a much longer period in the West. In 2025, almost three out of five older persons will be residing in Asia, already home to the majority of the world’s older people.
Gathering government representatives and experts from 14 countries in Asia and the Pacific, the Regional Seminar on Follow-up to the Shanghai Implementation Strategy for the Madrid and Macao Plans of Action on Ageing, spotlighted an array of issues related to population ageing and social security protections in particular, and suggested ways to address them.
Building on existing informal support systems with formal schemes to create a balanced and comprehensive social protection system that includes health care, access to entitlements and human rights protections and life-long learning was one of the means suggested by the Seminar.
The Seminar also agreed on an appraisal and review protocol; a bottom-up participatory research approach linked with a matrix of instrumental and outcome indicators, that would help assess the impact of the Shanghai Implementation Strategy (SIS) for the Madrid and Macao Plans of Action on Ageing in Asia and the Pacific.
One of the major objectives of the Seminar was to review the status of implementation of SIS, adopted at the Asia-Pacific Seminar on Regional Follow-up to the Second World Assembly on Ageing (Shanghai, 2002), in light of the ongoing demographic transition in the region.
The issue of data and data collection methods related to population ageing, as well as lack of adequate research in the area of health and rural ageing, were also addressed during the Seminar.