03 Oct 2023

Businesswoman and owner of Camel’s Inn in Mmopane Ms Barudi Mosimaneotsile on Sunday gathered golden agers in her community to commemorate this year’s International Day of Older Persons at her facility.

The event, which started with light exercises for the elderly led by the youth was meant to put a spotlight on and celebrate the ageing population in Mmopane.

Speaking at the event, WHO representative Dr Josephine Namboze highlighted the importance of commemorating the day, saying the number of older people in the population was increasing in almost every country, Botswana included.

For the first time in history, she said in 2017, people aged 60 years and above outnumbered children under the age of five and at this rate, it was anticipated that by the end of 2030, the number of people 60 years and above would grow from 1.1 billion (2022) to 1.4 billion in 2030.

She, however, noted that nearly 80 per cent of the world’s older population was projected to live in low and middle-income countries by 2050 primarily because of the increasing life expectancy.

“In 2023, the global life expectancy at birth is estimated to be 73.4 years, almost 10 years more than in 1990, with women predicted to live longer than men, at 76 years compared to men’s 70.8 years life expectancy,” she said.

Dr Namboze said 7.4 per cent of Botswana’s population was currently over the age of 60, and this was projected to nearly double to 13.5 per cent by 2050. “This pace of population ageing is unprecedented, thus an urgent need to take action in Botswana and Africa as a whole,” she said. 

She nevertheless noted that with ageing, came opportunities that could be explored hence it was important to promote healthy ageing for all.

Among the opportunities, Dr Namboze highlighted that older people were important social contributions to family, volunteer work and offered a complementary workforce.

For that reason, she said older people represented an underutilised human and social resource. 

As such, she said as people aged, they needed medical attention and other services offered by the health system, long-term care and social care. 

As such, she said it was important to invest in health throughout one’s life so that the burden of diseases in old age could be reduced and instead promote social engagement, and enable contributions of older individuals to the society. 

Dr Namboze applauded Ms Mosimaneotsile for her efforts to gather the elderly and commemorate this special day with them since this kind of commemorations were usually conducted by government.

MP for Lentsweletau/Mmopane, Ms Nnaniki Makwinja also commended Ms Mosimaneotsile for remembering the elderly on this special occasion. 

She, however, said government was doing a lot in the health sector as evidenced by the recent WHO 73^rd Regional Conference that Botswana hosted. 

She also said Botswana was a step ahead and wanted to become a global player in manufacturing various vaccines for different ailments.

She urged young people to take care of the elderly, saying in the past children were raised by their grandparents and as a result, they produced well-rounded individuals who were responsible and admired in the society. 

She also advocated for the engagement of elders in the broader community and in schools as they possessed indigenous knowledge and wisdom that could be passed on to the younger generations. For her part, the organiser, Ms Mosimaneotsile said she was motivated to organise the event after she realised that the elderly population was sidelined in many programmes. 

She said since older people were dear to her since she was raised by her grandparents, she saw it fit to put a smile on their faces by gathering them under one roof to show them love and shower them with gifts. She said the event was in its third edition this year and decided to align it with the annual international commemoration for older persons. She emphasised that older people were a blessing and younger generations ought to be taught to take care of them.

Ms Mosimaneotsile said she intended to continue to celebrate the day annually and shower the elderly with gifts, entertainment and games to make them feel special as a way of giving back to the community in which her business operations were based.

The International Day of Older Persons was established by the UN General Assembly on December 14, 1990. 

The day was first observed on October 1, 1991, and since then, it has been commemorated annually.

This year the day was commemorated under the theme: Fulfilling the Promises of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for Older Persons Across Generations.

The day is meant to focus on the specificity of older persons around the world, for the enjoyment of their rights and in addressing violations, and how the strengthening of solidarity through equity and reciprocity between generations and offer sustainable solutions to deliver on the promise of the Sustainable Development Goals. ends