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In 1994, Susanne Paul founded Global Action on Aging, an advocacy and research organization that is based at the United Nations in New York.
Most recently, Susanne initiated a major program at GAA to document cases of
older persons caught in situations of armed conflict. This project produces data for United Nations' publications and for departments involved in protecting civilians. It also responds to urgent appeals in the UN's International Plan of Action on Ageing drawn up in 2002 that focused on the vulnerability of older persons caught in conflicts. In February 2004 Global Action on Aging held a Side Event at the UN Commission for Social Development: "Protecting Older Persons in Armed Conflict." Attracting both Government Delegations and NGO's, the event thrust older persons onto the humanitarian agenda. Eventually the project aims to include specific procedures a status of humanitarian protection for older persons in dangerous circumstances.
In 2002, under Susanne's leadership, GAA organized more than fifty persons from a wide array of civic, women's, and religious organizations in several countries to attend at the UN's Second World Assembly on Ageing held in April 2002 in Madrid, Spain. Many in the group developed workshops-on volunteers, on arts, on income security and spiritual issues-to reflect their work on aging. Global Action on Aging partnered with the International Social Security Association to present "New Approaches to Old Poverty," and with the Negro Business and Professional Women's Organization for "Social Initiatives of Older Women to Address Aging issues in Developing Countries."
Global Action on Aging, whose major focus is the economic and social dimensions of population aging, presented several programs at the United Nations and in the NGO (non-governmental community) on "Ageing, Neo-Liberalism and the Global Economy" and "Prospects for the UN's Second World Assembly" during 2001.
In 1999 as part of the UN's International Year of Older Persons, Global Action on Aging, with Susanne Paul's direction, organized the National (USA) Satellite Teleconference that aired to 135 downlink sites in 40 states and reached an estimated 15,000 persons. A year earlier, Global Action hosted some 120 women leaders from four continents and representing 65 national and international, secular and religious organizations, who framed the Nashville Declaration of Older Women's Rights. From 1990 to 1998, Susanne represented Church World Service and Witness as United Nations Representative in New York. During the 1980's, she directed Older Adult Advocacy and Education at the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries.
Susanne Paul authored Humanity Comes of Age that was published in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1994, and has gone through four printings. She has written and spoken extensively on global aging issues in many venues, including the UN General Assembly, the First Aging Conference in Iran, major UN conferences in Cairo, Copenhagen, and Beijing, as well as throughout the US. In 1991 she took part in drafting the Global Targets for the 1982 International Plan of Action on Ageing. Born in Indiana, educated at Northwestern, Indiana, and Harvard Universities, Susanne lives in New York with her husband, James.
Copyright © 2002 Global Action on Aging
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