In its Proclamation on Aging, the United Nations General Assembly decided to declare 1999 as the International Year of Older Persons. The proclamation was launched on 1 October 1998, the International Day of Older Persons, by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The year was celebrated in recognition of humanity's demographic coming of age and the promise it holds for maturing attitudes and capabilities in social, economic, cultural and spiritual undertakings, not least for global peace and development in the next century.
Worldwide, within the next generations, the proportion of the population aged 60 and over will increase from one in four, bringing about significant social, economic and spiritual change. The proclamation was meant to draw attention to the recognition of humanity's demographic coming of age and the promise it holds for maturing attitudes and capabilities in social, economic, cultural and spiritual undertakings, not least for global peace and development in the next century.
Numerous events took place within the UN and in member countries to mark the event.
Read more about International Year Of Older Persons: Theme, History, United Nations Principles For Older Persons, IYOP Commemorative Coins and Stamps
Famous quotes containing the words year, older and/or persons:
“For myself I found that the occupation of a day-laborer was the most independent of any, especially as it required only thirty or forty days in a year to support one. The laborer’s day ends with the going down of the sun, and he is then free to devote himself to his chosen pursuit, independent of his labor; but his employer, who speculates from month to month, has no respite from one end of the year to the other.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is poverty’s speech that seeks us out the most.
It is older than the oldest speech of Rome.
This is the tragic accent of the scene.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Really, all things and persons are related to us, but according to our nature, they act on us not at once, but in succession, and we are made aware of their presence one at a time. All persons, all things which we have known, are here present, and many more than we see; the world is full.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)