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Caritas Coimbra in the Vice Presidency of the European Convenant on Demographic Change.

Cáritas Coimbra is represented in the Vice-Presidency of the European Convenant on Demographic Change following the elections held on 28 January 2017.
The European Covenant on Demographic Change was launched on December 7th 2015 in the Committee of the Regions (CoR) in Brussels, in the presence of Mr Markus Markkula, President of the CoR. Since then, more than 150 public authorities, organizations and civil society companies from 23 countries are already part of this organization. These include national, regional or local public authorities. 68 of the members were present or represented at the registry office in Brussels on 29 January and signed their Statutes as founding members.
The Covenant is now an international non-profit organization established under Belgian law, which operates in close cooperation with the World Health Organization.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), physical and social environments are key for people to remain healthy, independent and autonomous for a long time during their ageing process. Creating friendly environments for older people is therefore one of the most effective approaches to respond to demographic change.

The Covenant was created following the AFE-INNOVNET Thematic Network. With the support of the European ICT Program and the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing, the AFE-INNOVNET Thematic Network mobilized 351 public authorities, civil society organizations, universities, research centers and businesses across Europe and developed a range of tools to assist public authorities in adapting their physical and social environments to an ageing population, including a guide on how to involve the older adults in the design and monitoring of their age-friendly initiatives, as well as an impact assessment of the framework for such initiatives.
More importantly, the main objective of AFE-INNOVNET was to launch the European Covenant on Demographic Change, that is, a sustainable political and technical platform, which brings together national, regional and local public authorities as well as civil society organizations,

By joining the Convenant, stakeholders will position themselves at the forefront in combating population aging, benefiting from a wide range of opportunities for mutual learning and partnership, various tools for implementing and assessing the impact of their age-friendly initiatives , leading the way to help Europe become more friendly to the elderly.
The Convenant is open to all public authorities and legally established organizations based in the EU and associated countries operating in the field of age-friendly environments.

For more information, visit www.agefriendlyeurope.org, follow on Twitter and LinkedIn AgeFriendlyEU “European Covenant on Demographic Change”.