Including older people in humanitarian response

Our new research report shows that Age Inclusion Specialists deployed by HelpAge International are driving critical change in humanitarian responses by ensuring older people are no longer overlooked. But without urgent, system-wide commitment, older people will continue to be excluded when they need support the most.

Older people are among those most at risk in armed conflicts, crises and disasters. However, they are often excluded and marginalised in humanitarian response efforts, and can face more negative impacts on physical and mental health, including malnutrition, injury and disability, than other people.

HelpAge is an international non-governmental organisation that works to ensure older people are no longer overlooked in times of crisis. As part of their work, HelpAge is deploying Age Inclusion Specialists who work with other humanitarian organisations, including United Nations agencies, to ensure older people are included throughout humanitarian response.

From 2023 to 2024, Dr Alex Robinson and Dr Rachel Coghlan from the Nossal Institute worked with HelpAge to understand how Age Inclusion Specialists are improving the inclusion of older people in humanitarian response in Ethiopia, Moldova, Ukraine and Venezuela. Views were gathered from 70 interviews with humanitarian workers across the four countries.

Findings of our research

The research shows that the work of the Age Inclusion Specialists has led to gradual but important positive changes, such as the inclusion of older people in humanitarian needs assessments, planning documents, and coordination meetings, where they were previously overlooked. Humanitarian workers strongly felt the Age Inclusion Specialist position is needed - without it, there would be little to no focus on older people in humanitarian response.

But including older people is still not a high priority in the humanitarian system. There are many barriers that make it difficult for the Age Inclusion Specialists to make more progress and build on successes, including:

• Different and competing priorities, with other issues seemingly more important than older people.
• Lack of organisations focused specifically on older people compared with groups focused on women and children.
• Limited funding from donors and organisations.
• No global guidelines on including older people in humanitarian response.

The research shows a clear need for consistent advocacy, better analysis and use of compelling data, compiling and sharing best practice solutions, and providing tailored, technical guidance on including older people in specific contexts and sectors such as health, shelter and nutrition. There is widespread agreement that long-term leadership, funding and commitment from humanitarian organisations is needed to amplify the inclusion of older people in humanitarian response in the future.

Access the research report, launched in June 2025.

Dr Rachel Coghlan is a Senior Technical Advisor at the Nossal Institute. She is a global leader on qualitative research and advocacy concerning palliative care in humanitarian settings.