UN Healthy Ageing Report Warns of Funding Gap Despite Progress

New York (GNP): The United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing has reached its midpoint with a mixed verdict. A new report finds more countries acting for older people than ever before, but warns that longer lives will not be healthy or dignified without faster and steadier investment.

The Secretary-General sent the mid-term progress report to the 81st session of the UN General Assembly on 28 September 2026. The Decade runs from 2021 to 2030, and the report marks the halfway point of that ten-year effort.

The World Health Organization (WHO) prepared the report with the UN Inter-Agency Group on Ageing. It draws on inputs from thirteen UN entities, the World Bank Group and civil society partners.

The urgency is clear from the numbers. The global population aged 60 and over passed 1 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach 2.1 billion by 2050, with the fastest growth in low and middle income countries.

Longer life does not guarantee better health. The gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy at age 60 widened between 2000 and 2023, and an estimated 71 percent of excess COVID-19 deaths between 2020 and 2023 were among people aged 60 and over.

Against that backdrop, the report records real gains. Legislation against age-based discrimination now exists in 57.7 percent of countries, up from 44.5 percent in 2018, and 56.7 percent have national long-term care policies, up from 49 percent in 2023.

Age-friendly environment programmes and comprehensive health and social assessments of older people each stand at 54.6 percent. New WHO guidance on long-term care and on Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE) is also helping more countries place these services inside national universal health care benefit packages.

WHO’s Dr Ritu Sadana said the progress spans all regions and income levels, but she flagged one area that is going backwards. Countries reporting active multi-stakeholder forums on ageing fell from 53.1 percent in 2020 to 43.3 percent today.

The sharper warning concerns money. More than a third of reporting countries, or 33.8 percent, have very little or no dedicated resources to develop long-term care, and the report finds similar shortfalls in the Decade’s other priority areas.

Access and data gaps follow the same pattern. Fewer than half of countries, or 45.4 percent, have legislation providing access to assistive devices such as hearing aids, spectacles or rollators, and only 22.7 percent can track older people’s health over time. That is the widest gap among the Decade’s core progress indicators.

The report therefore calls for sustained investment through national budgets, country-owned plans, development cooperation and innovative financing mechanisms, with the aim of closing these gaps by 2030. It adds that each country needs nationally representative information, because older adults of the same age do not share the same needs and capacities.

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Officials behind the report echoed that call. WHO’s Dr Pascale Allotey said the second half of the Decade must focus on scaling and financing the progress already made. Amal Abou Rafeh of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, who co-chairs the Inter-Agency Group on Ageing, said countries must lead on legislation, funding and implementation while engaging older people.

The World Bank Group’s Fiona Stewart framed the issue as an economic one. She said countries that invest early in integrated and long-term care see savings that outweigh the upfront cost many times over, and that predictable financing at country level is now needed.

The report also draws on the direct experience of older people. A multilingual global survey by the International Federation on Ageing reached more than 1,000 older people across 58 countries. WHO and UN partners are urging Member States to use the second half of the Decade to speed up implementation, strengthen data systems and secure the financing needed.

Stewart said, “Investing in healthy ageing is not simply a cost.”