Recent research highlights the valuable roles older people play in emergencies and the economic and social contributions they make. Reducing their vulnerability people is not primarily about creating special services for them. It is about ensuring they have equal access to vital services.
To help relief agencies meet the specific needs of older people in emergencies, these guidelines outline key approaches and actions to help the humanitarian community reduce the vulnerability associated with ageing, as well as ways of enhancing the capacities and contributions of older people in emergencies.
The guidelines also explore wider issues relating to older people in humanitarian crises, ranging from globally agreed principles of social and civil practice and global demographic changes, to the physical impact of the ageing process, common images and assumptions held about older people, the key problems they face, and the gender dimensions of their needs.
The guidelines are based on wide-ranging research from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, and several years of global disaster experience.
