As a first city in Japan where life longevity is a major characteristic of the country, Akita City joined WHO Global Network for Age-friendly Cities and Communities in 2011. In 2013, Akita City established the First Akita Age-friendly City Action Plan (2013-2016). In the first Action Plan, Akita City promoted senior citizen’s social participation, and facilitated motivation and public awareness of Age-friendly City with the help of local community associations. The city established a system to tackle the Age-friendly City throughout the community.

On the other hand, as the declines of population and the birth rate as well as the aging of the population progressing, it is estimated that the proportion of people aged 65 or over will increase to 35.1% of the total population in 2025 and 42.3% in 2040 in Akita City. We are concerned about lack of personnel in business and community. Therefore, we feel an urgent need to work harder to help create a society where the elderly can be active throughout their lifetime.

For the Second Action Plan (2017-2021), Akita City will further develop and modify the accomplishments achieved by the First Action Plan, and we will work on solutions for various regional issues by collaborating with the city administration, citizens and private companies and organizations.

【Priority Measures】

・Creating a collaboration system to help solve regional issues with industrial-academic-government-citizen cooperation

・Promotion of various community activities by local residents with regional resources

・Developing future leaders and enhancing human resources by providing opportunities for them to fully demonstrate their experiences and abilities

【Examples of our work】

・Promotion of Age-friendly efforts by private companies and organizations

・Promotion of civic activities to expand making friendship between the generations that inspire and help each other spontaneously in order to live a long and enjoyable life in the familiar Akita City

・Supporting residents to create gathering places for the local elderly, aiming to eliminate isolation of the elderly and building relationships to help each other in the local community

・Holding “Senior Film Festival” to promote the elderly to go out with fun

・Providing citizens “Age-friendly City College”, where the opportunities are given to the citizens to learn various challenges of the society where aging is becoming a social issue

・Creating our own indicators and using it to promote Age-friendly City throughout the community by sharing our efforts’ progress clearly with the citizens and to review them and plan new initiatives in the future by monitoring citizen’s satisfaction