CONNECTED Generations, CONNECTED Cities: Age-friendly vision

Summary

The City&Co consortium (https://cityco.snspa.ro/) presents a Manifesto drawing on survey data and photographic material collected in the cities of The Hague (the Netherlands), Wrocław and Kraków (Poland) and Bucharest (Romania). City&Co involved older adults in validating an instrument for the evaluation of age-friendliness of cities and communities – Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Questionnaire (AFCCQ, https://extranet.who.int/agefriendlyworld/afp/the-age-friendly-cities-and-communities-questionnaire-afccq/), and in co-designing a geoportal – an innovative platform that policymakers could use to evaluate how age-friendly different areas of their urban community are.

Drawing on data from the AFCCQ and the geoportal, the City&Co co-creation workshop with older adults and policymakers from four cities was organised, and the Manifesto was collectively developed. This Manifesto is a programmatic document that can empower local and national organisations, municipalities, and policymakers to create age-friendly urban environments where older adults feel welcomed and enjoy a better quality of life. The Manifesto outlines 10 key points that underpin older people’s and policymakers’ views on the age-friendly cities and communities framework, as stated by the World Health Organization (2007): CONNECT, OFFER, NURTURE, NETWORKING, ELABORATE, CONTINUITY, TAILORED, INVOLVE, NEIGHBOURING and GRANDPARENTING.

Manifesto-NL Manifesto_RO Manifesto_PL Manifesto EN

Key facts

Main target group: Both younger and older people (i.e. intergenerational)

Other target group(s): Policymakers

Sector(s): Health, Information and communication, Social protection, Urban development

Desired outcome for older people:
Learn, grow and make decisions

Other issues the Age-friendly practice aims to address:

Accessibility
Ageing in place
Intergenerational activities
Inclusion
Participation

Contact details

Name: Willeke Van Staalduinen

Email address: willeke@afedemy.eu

Age-friendly practice in detail (click to expand):

Engaging the wider community

Project lead: Research institution

Others involved in the project:

Local authorities
Civil Society Organisation
Older People’s Association
Social or health care provider
Volunteers
Private sector
Research institution

How collaboration worked: This Manifesto is based upon work from the project City&Co: Older Adults Co-Creating a Sustainable Age-Friendly City (JPI project number 99950200). This project was funded by the Taskforce for Applied Research (UTC.01.1), National Science Centre (UMO-2021/03/Y/HS6/00213), and Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI) (Contract no: 298 ⁄ 2022), as part of ERA-NET Cofund Urban Transformation Capacities (ENUTC), co-funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101003758 One of the City&Co project goals was to involve older adults and policymakers in co-creative approaches to design a Manifesto based on the data gathered with the help of older adults in 4 European citiesȘ The Hague, Wrocław, Kraków and Bucharest . Together, research partners in the Netherlands, Poland and Romania have investigated the age-friendliness of the four urban communities.

Older people’s involvement: Older people were involved in the age-friendly practice at multiple or all stages

Details on older people’s involvement: Older persons were involved in all stages of the project, having a key role, and the participatory approach was maintained through the whole project. The research team has generated together with the older adults and not for them

Moving forward

Has the impact of this age-friendly practice been analysed: No

Do you plan to evaluate your age-friendly practice? Yes

Expansion plans:
Responding to the international interests, the AFCCQ is being translated, validated, and implemented in several countries in- and outside of Europe, following the procedures as we do in the City&Co project. Currently, the AFCCQ is undertaking these different phases in Turkey, North Macedonia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, Israel, Russia, and Australia. Additionally, there are other countries that have expressed an interest and are in the process of joining. They will follow the same process as the other countries and the City&Co project. The pathways to impact stemming from the City&Co project are on a global scale because of the interest and current activities being undertaken by expert scholars in many countries.

Looking back

Reflections:
By involving older adults in all activities of the City&Co project, we reflect on their expectations and the emphasis they put on what they could offer to the urban communities in terms of resources, volunteer work, expertise, time and dedication. Older adults expressed their views on the lack of consultation in policy design and implementation at the city level and in various neighbourhoods. With some positive examples in mind – as the Seniors Council at Kraków municipality (elected body with a decision role) – older adults need to be better represented and more involved in decision-making processes at the city level, especially in the case of policies concerning the age-friendly city agenda.

Challenges:
When involving older adults from different cities with various socio-cultural backgrounds, the spoken language could be a challenge. Particularly, when we drafted the Manifesto, we proceeded to an inclusive approach by involving older adults who were not necessarily able to use English as a lingua franca in regular conversations and provided moderators with a role of assisting the interactions. Moreover, the Manifesto has been drafted and published in English, Polish, Dutch and Romanian. Using materials that are culturally sensitive and language-permissive is a requirement for future practices of working with older adults in cross-cultural collaborative ways.