In accordance with Turkey’s 2023 Healthy and Age Friendly Country Strategy, D-8 Secretariat was invited by the World Ageing Council as the speaker at the Global Health and Ageing Summit, which was held on 1 February 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey. This Summit was held in collaboration with EMITT ISTANBUL 2014 – Eastern Mediterranean International Travel & Tourism Exhibition in TUYAP Convention Center.

D-8 Secretariat, as one of speaker at the first morning session, delivered statement and presentation on the D-8 Population Ageing and Elderly: Facts, Challenges, and Solutions. As the outline, D-8 Secretariat drew briefly some highlights of current situation of global health and ageing. 

Referring to the United Nations (UN) Population Division in its report in 2013, D-8 Secretariat emphasized that the growth of large cities and metropolitan areas has been one of the most remarkable demographic stories of past decades. In addition, the share of people aged 60-plus in the world has reached 8% of total population at the end of 2013, and subsequently is expected to reach 12% by 2025. 

However, D-8 Secretariat also underlined that fertility still becomes main problems of population. This will affect to percentage of elderly in the future, in which that in the year 2045, Indonesia and Turkey will become the oldest population among D-8 member countries. This figure shows some challenges to government and private sectors on how to manage elderly population in D-8 countries.  

Population ageing, especially in D-8 Countries, generates many challenges and sparks for health-policymaker. At least, there are three main challenges in managing population ageing in D-8 Countries such as the size and quality of the workforce, the operation and financial integrity of health care, pension systems, housing, and the well-being of the elderly.

These challenges had directly challenged developing countries to seek innovative ways to find ways to collectively advance new meanings of life that utilize all of their citizens will prosper far more than ones in which social structures constrain contributions. 

As the conclusion, there are some solutions for the health-policymaker in managing the population ageing. Public pension systems and Financing health care systems are the key points to maintain the meaning and purpose of advanced stages of life in D-8 Countries.

Statement and presentation of this event can be downloaded from the following links: