Updating ‘age-friendly’ for the innovation age

The world is being rocked by four uniquely powerful disruptive forces: aging, urbanization, technology and globalization. The WHO’s age-friendly cities and communities (AFCC) initiative – updated to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by pervasive, ubiquitous, exponential technology – could be a powerful platform to help cities adapt and thrive in a fast-changing world.

The world needs to adapt to disruptive megatrends

The 2015 McKinsey book, No Ordinary Disruption explains how the megatrends of urbanization, aging, exponential technology and global interconnectedness are disrupting society. The book notes that each trend alone would be game-changing; taken together their impact could be 3,000 times that of the Industrial Revolution. Each trend connects with and exacerbates the others and requires societies to develop innovative, ambitious agile responses.

Cities and communities are in the front lines

Voters in the West are losing faith in their governments to do the right thing (with the UK seeing a particularly severe drop), and there is also a growing rejection of today’s shareholder-optimized capitalism. Despite, or maybe because of that, support for local governments and Mayors is increasing. As such, cities, not countries (or companies acting individually) will increasingly be the locus of innovation. Many, though by no means all, cities have democratic support, leadership vision, funding, and the ability to execute. A new book by Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak, The New Localism, makes the case that local efforts can transcend tribalism; cities are taking on the mantle of innovator in the face of these seismic shifts. As they bluntly put it, “In the absence of a functioning federal government, investing in America’s future will have to happen from the bottom up.”

The growing ‘age-friendly’ movement is already addressing two of these trends

The WHO’s age-friendly cities and communities (AFCC) movement could be a useful platform to help cities address these shifts, as it is already addressing aging and urbanization. Since its inception in 2007, it has grown to over 500 locations and been embraced by affiliates in a number of countries (e.g. AARP in the U.S. and the Centre for Ageing Better (UK) and the UK Network of Age-friendly (UK)) as well as international organizations (e.g., International Federation on Ageing). As result of this movement, as well as the growing public recognition of the need for action in this area, hundreds of cities around the world have made aging a priority and developed clear action plans. Moreover, many of these have engaged their local populations so have buy-in from older adults, and local non-profits / community groups which bolsters legitimacy and acceptance.

Turning age-friendly into an innovation platform

AFCC in its current form is not designed or fully equipped to deliver innovation at scale. It’s run by a small secretariat with limited funding, is heavily dependent on a loose collection of volunteers, and efforts are often siloed from the rest of the city activities, in particular new, tech-focused ‘smart’ initiatives. The remainder of this note suggests four steps for turning the AFCC movement into a global platform that could better address the growing challenges of globalization and exponential technology, in addition to urban aging.

1. Connect AFCC with ‘smart city’ initiatives

Mayors today have a lot on their plate. As the disruptive threats have blossomed, so too have the number and variety of different strategies, organizations and actions plans to tackle them; we have visions for cities that are smart, resilient, connected, innovative, inclusive, sustainable and sharing cities among others. (Indeed, the WHO itself has a separate Healthy Cities initiative, that appears mostly disconnected to the age-friendly one). The European Commission is supporting two European-wide innovation partnerships, one on active and health aging and one on smart cities, which would do well to share insights, partners, and funding.

Rather than choosing between multiple different propositions, the WHO could give Mayors the tools to use an age-friendly ‘lens’ for all of their efforts. This is because starting with the most vulnerable, disconnected segment of the population will surface the most important and challenging issues. After all, a city that is designed to work well for older people (especially those with limited, mobility, cognitive impairments and who are isolated and / or poor), will almost certainly work well for the young and wealthy.

Further, the WHO can harness the arguments for the ‘silver economy’. (AARP, Oxford Economics, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BCG and others have produced useful analyses documenting the size of the ‘longevity economy). Older people as contributors to society as workers, innovators, carers, investors and designers among other things offers a new and untapped source of value. This overlooked ‘emerging market’ on our doorstep holds the potential to lower health and long-term care costs and deliver new jobs and economic growth.

→ Actions: Map AFCC cities to smart cities (and related) initiatives to explore overlaps between cities and the specific projects. Provide an ‘aging lens’ to analyze new initiatives. Develop / repurpose content and materials about the attractiveness of the ‘longevity economy’.

2. Add tech to age-friendly initiatives

This can be done by integrating new technologies in the interventions that older people care most about (for example those depicted in the eight dimensions of the 2007 Vancouver ProtocolFOOTNOTE: Footnote). The Appendix lists out a number of innovations that are being used today in cities to address each of these dimensions, and the related note “An innovation roadmap for age-friendly cities and communities” lays out the process for how cities can integrate a technology / startup approach into their age-friendly priorities.

→ Actions: Learning modules, case studies data to support new approaches to traditional challenges

3. Create a learning collaborative

To paraphrase Tolstoy, successful cities are all alike; unsuccessful cities are unsuccessful in their own way. Either way there will be learning opportunities, and a robust mechanism to share learnings about cities would accelerate progress. For example, cities that have successfully implemented fall prevention programs or initiatives to end isolation can share perspectives along the journey, from problem identification, through testing to scale. But there should also be the ability for cities to connect around other dimensions – failures (not just successes), shared geography, political affiliation, interest group or topic, among other ways. This requires a community of cities and experts that allows shared knowledge and connections. A natural collaboration could spring up on this topic around ‘twinned’ cities who may be able to learn from each other given a history of collaboration.

→ Actions: Create a learning collaborative with regular (e.g. monthly) webinars and conference calls around key topics (such as engagement and isolation, mobility), highlighting successful case studies.

4. Leverage private sector expertise and investment for public sector benefit

The private sector is generally more innovative and risk-tolerant than the public sector, and represents an important potential source of investment, as well as ability to navigate and manage risk. Unfortunately, in many of the early public-private efforts (in the UK for example) the deals have been structured to strongly advantage the private sector (those aforementioned capable risk managers) who receive guaranteed upside while the public sector shoulders the risk and often bails out companies if they stumble. However, there are many public-private models that work and harness the entrepreneurial energy for public benefit (such as Copenhagen’s Port).

→ Actions: Engage with innovative private sector companies in a new platform but avoid ‘capture’ by any particular vendor and ensure that – startups – the polar opposite of today’s traditional vendors – have a seat at the table.

Conclusion: Extending AFCC could give it unique capabilities to deal with a changing world

The measures above are designed to point to the direction of a new age-friendly cities approach that will speak to Mayors dealing with these disruptive trends. This approach recognizes the uniquely important role of ‘localism’ as a bulwark against a fast unravelling social compact, and suggests that a refreshed AFCC model integrate with other initiatives, add tech options to cities’ age-friendly plans, create a learning collaborative and carefully engages the private sector. Hopefully as a result, the Mayors and their teams will be more emboldened and have the relevant tools to take on the pressing challenges of our age.

Appendix

Source: Global Age-friendly Cities: A Guide (WHO, 2007), Stephen Johnston