How a focus on the 'old' can make the 'new' development agenda more inclusive

The sustainable development goals, which will be adopted later this month, have a bold ambition: for the world to take transformative steps to move toward sustainable development that leaves no one behind.

And that means the needs of everyone, including the growing number of elderly people globally, must be addressed by the 17 goals and 169 targets in the much-anticipated post-2015 development agenda — something that the expiring Millennium Development Goals failed to do, according to Jane Scobie, director of communications and advocacy at HelpAge International.

“[The MDGs] focused on child and maternal health [and] issues of aging were not mentioned. The overall target of reducing poverty by half was not specific enough and was not used to improve measurement of old age poverty,” the author and architect of the London-based group’s Global Age Watch Index report told Devex. “The SDGs … addresses this shortfall [with its] focus on ‘for all at all ages.’”