The National Senior Citizen Centre (NSCC) has trained desk officers from over 40 ministries, departments and agencies in order to mainstream older persons into government policies, plans and programs.
The Centre, however, decried the non-inclusion of older persons in strategic plans of most government’s establishments across the country which it said hinders age-centred service delivery.
The Director General of the Centre, Dr. Emem Omokaro gave the hint at a Two-day training workshop for desk officers on the implementation of strategic roadmap on ageing and project activities in Abuja.
Omokaro noted that older persons have peculiar challenges –the bedrock of which is ageism, negative form of stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination expressed at the micro, macro, institutional and social levels.
She said it was important to have desk officers in all MDAs with proper understanding of their roles and responsibilities in the implementation of NSCC strategic roadmap in improving the welfare of older persons.
Omokaro noted: “We have decided to train desk officers from over 40 ministries departments and agencies to mainstream older persons into government policies, plans and programs.”
“With the desk offices, we should be able, to strengthen NSCCs partnerships with the various MDAs, where they already exist and to leverage on the enhanced understanding of ageing and issues of older persons to evolve more effective partnerships and collaborations on mainstreaming ageing into specific programs and services.”
She further revealed that the agency through partnership has successfully mainstreamed older person into the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Matured People Program, and also signed Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Ministry of Health National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), National Orientation Agency (NOA) National Human Right Commission among others.