AGAC Issue Focus is a biannual periodical that aims to address ageing and human rights issues in a timely fashion. The publication introduces relevant ASEM partner policies and responses to a wider audience in order to promote information sharing and awareness raising and ultimately enhance ASEM partner cooperation.

The AGAC Issue Focus Team prepared this Fall/Winter Edition of Issue Focus: Care and the Human Rights of Older Persons. Valuable insight and input were provided by the contributors to this issue—Niki Kalavrezou at the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research, Vienna; Craig Sinclair at the University of New South Wales’ School of Psychology and Ageing Futures Institute, and  Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA), Sydney; Sina Yi at the ASEM Global Ageing Center and Seoul Metropolitan Government; and Ketchuda Rodngern, Orawan Prasitsiriphon, Chadatan Osatis, and Ruttiya Bhula-or, all at the College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.

As the world experiences rapid demographic transition, we hope that this edition will inspire advocates for the human rights of older persons and contribute to improving older people’s quality of life, particularly with respect to care. We argue that those charged with thinking about and practicing care must aspire to develop systems in sync with human values, notably the dignity, autonomy, and agency of persons. We look forward to a world free of the injustices that harm our present systems of care; the ASEM Global Ageing Center will remain committed to this cause, and the struggle to achieve it.

For more information, please see the attached report.