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The Covenant on Demographic Change: a history of this domain

This web address once belonged to the European network behind the Covenant. This website is independent of it. Here is what the Covenant was, and where to find official information.

This website is not the Covenant

Age Friendly Europe is an independent website. It is not run by, and does not speak for, the Covenant on Demographic Change, AGE Platform Europe, the AFE-INNOVNET network, the European Commission or the World Health Organization. Today this site publishes practical guides for older people and their families in the UK and Ireland.

What the Covenant was

The Covenant on Demographic Change was a European partnership of local and regional authorities, civil society organisations, universities and businesses. Its members committed to making their towns, cities and regions better places to grow older.

It grew out of AFE-INNOVNET, an EU-funded thematic network on innovation for age-friendly environments, coordinated by AGE Platform Europe. Its stated aims were to improve healthy life expectancy, support independent living for older people and build a society for all ages.

Timeline

  • 7 December 2015: the Covenant was launched at the European Committee of the Regions in Brussels, with support from the European Commission and the WHO. 77 organisations had confirmed they would join, including 46 local and regional authorities.
  • Early 2016: according to AGE Platform Europe, the Covenant was legally established as an international non-profit association under Belgian law.
  • Until about 2022: the Covenant's website used this web address (agefriendlyeurope.org). The domain has since changed hands.

The old website published the network's news, event listings, member stories and project documents, such as the AFE-INNOVNET deliverables and the Covenant brochure, as well as pages for the Silver Economy Awards. None of those pages or files are online here any more. If a link brought you here looking for one of them, the official sources below are the best place to start.

The WHO age-friendly framework

The Covenant drew on the World Health Organization's framework for age-friendly cities and communities, which covers eight areas of daily life:

  1. Outdoor spaces and buildings
  2. Transportation
  3. Housing
  4. Social participation
  5. Respect and social inclusion
  6. Civic participation and employment
  7. Communication and information
  8. Community support and health services

Official sources

If you are looking for a current age-friendly programme for your town or region, start with the WHO Global Network.

What this site does now

We write plain-English guides to personal alarms, fall detection, dementia aids and care decisions in the UK and Ireland. Read about us or browse the guides.