Regional strategies and demographic ageing: Age Proofing Toolkit

To help regional authorities across Europe to manage their response to increasingly rapid and profound demographic ageing‚ a new toolkit has been launched by Age Concern England and the European Union’s Committee of the Regions.

The toolkit is designed to assist policy makers at a regional level to recognise the cross-cutting impact of ageing and to consider the impact it will have on them and their territories. It also plans to bring more consistency to the response to ageism by authorities from across the UK and Europe.

The toolkit focuses on the main areas of responsibility of regional authorities and based around five themes:

general trends
themes and indicators
regional economies
regional development
regional infrastructure
regional governance

It has been designed as a generic mechanism to prompt analysis of the different challenges posed by population ageing in the regions‚ and to help regional authorities to shape their responses‚ recognising their strengths‚ responsibilities and powers.