Annual report

Strategic Priorities
| Health and wellbeing 
113

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individuals aged 60 or over will have tripled from 
600 million in 2000 to two billion in 2050, with 
80 per cent living in low- or middle-income coun-
tries – the IFRC worked with National Societies 
and other partners to develop new approaches 
to heathy ageing in 2022.
A Strategy and Framework for Healthy Ageing 
was launched this year alongside priorities to 
guide the strategy for the next decade. The 
approach aims to “empower communities to 
make the best choices to live longer, healthier 
and more active and dignified lives using a 
life-course approach”. At the same time, the 
IFRC worked to build National Society capaci-
ties to scale up healthy ageing and anti-ageism 
community-level programming through training 
and regional workshops, and launched a MOOC 
course on healthy ageing.
In 2022, the IFRC demonstrated leadership in 
addressing the pressing global health issue of 
non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The IFRC 
recognized the ever-increasing burden and 
impact of NCDs among communities in different 
settings. The IFRC conducted a global NCD sur-
vey for National Societies; it was a crucial step 
towards addressing the growing issue of NCDs, 
enabling National Societies to understand their 
communities’ needs better and develop tar-
geted interventions. The IFRC is establishing a 
new vision, framework and package to provide 
National Societies with a roadmap for scaling up 
their NCD programming. The IFRC continued to 
develop and launch MOOC courses on healthy 
lifestyle for NCD prevention and control in mul-
tiple languages and integration of prevention 
and care for Mental Health and Psychosocial 
Support and NCD in humanitarian settings in 
collaboration with the University of Copenhagen 
and the IFRC Psychosocial Centre.
The IFRC continued its work in high-level advo-
cacy and representation throughout 2022, 
with strong contributions at the World Health 
Assembly, World Mental Health summit, UN 
General Assembly and the World Health Summit, 
among others. It was also actively involved with 
global health boards and steering committees 
such as the Roll Back Malaria Country Regional 
Support Partner Committee and the Malaria 
Commodity Forecasting Initiative).
The IFRC worked closely with UHC2030 and CSEM 
to provide an input for country commitment 
reports to achieve Universal Health Coverage. 
Country consultations in four countries were 
organized by National Societies, bringing 
together over 150 partners working at commu-
nity level and discussed challenges for groups 
of communities to access health services and 
possible recommendations to health authorities.
The IFRC also worked closely with National 
Societies, IOM, WHO, UHC2030 and other part-
ners to organize a series of side-events at the 
COP27 WHO Health Pavilion in Egypt. Side events 
provided an excellent platform to promote the 
role that the network plays in addressing climate 
related health risks.
During the World Health Summit, high-level 
meetings were organized with selected member 
states and the private sector. IFRC leadership 
delivered interventions on migration and the 
implementation of our international commit-
ments, as well as the significant resignation of 
health workers, pushing for gender equality 
and dignity.