Farewell to our founding leader

This week, Age International is saying goodbye to its founding Director Chris Roles. Chris has led the organisation since the creation of Age International ten years ago and he has also been a valued member of the senior leadership team for the Age UK group. Below he shares some final thoughts on his time at Age International before he begins the handover to our new CEO.

"As I prepare to step down, after ten eventful and fulfilling years heading up Age International, I have been reflecting on some of our achievements, and on the challenges and opportunities that will be picked up by my successor, Alison Marshall.

I became Age International’s first Director back in 2012. Age International was a newly-formed organisation then, but that doesn’t mean that the international work we were supporting was new. Age UK had recently been created, from a merger between two well-known charities, Age Concern England and Help the Aged. Both of them had long-standing commitments to responding to ageing and the rights and needs of older people in low and middle-income countries as well as here in the UK.

Age UK continued that commitment to international work by creating a subsidiary charity, Age International.

An expert and experienced Board of Trustees was recruited, with deep knowledge of the issues affecting older people, and of international development and humanitarian work. The staff team inherited partnerships with like-minded organisations around the world, and in particular with HelpAge International, a global network of age-focused organisations. Age International became this global network’s UK member, committed to raising funds, awareness, support and understanding in the UK about the needs of older people in low-income countries, and committed to changing policies and attitudes in their favour. Age UK’s financial backing for Age International was crucial from the very beginning, and I want to give a special acknowledgement and thanks to Age UK for the financial commitment and other support that has been so vital to Age International over these ten years.

Being part of a global network, each member playing its complementary part, and with local presence and expertise that supporting and strengthening existing organisations around the world can bring, has meant that Age International has achieved positive impact for older people that is way above our size or apparent importance.

We call that ‘leverage’; others call it ‘punching above our weight’ – but whatever term we use, what matters is that we believe that millions of potentially vulnerable older people have lived lives of greater security and wellbeing because of the efforts of the global network of which Age International has been proud to be a part.

Looking back over ten years of Age International annual reports and publications, our contribution is clear: we have helped to support the humanitarian response to so many crisis situations, from the Syria conflict, Typhoon Haiyan, the Nepal earthquake, drought in East Africa, conflict and hunger in Yemen and Gaza, the Rohingya refugee crisis, and most recently in Ukraine. In each of these situations are countless examples of older people being included where they might otherwise, too easily, have had their needs overlooked or insufficiently understood. And we have supported older people to be active responders in such crises, helping their families and communities to cope with crisis and trauma that these emergencies have brought. Our humanitarian work has not stopped there. We have made good steps forward – though there is more to do – in building understanding and awareness among other humanitarian organisations about the needs of older people, and how best to respond to them.

Almost every older person I know is focused, among many other things, on health and income, on ageing in the best possible health, and on feeling secure in the resources they have to live. It’s the same the world over – and rightly so. Older people have a right, as much as anyone else at any other age, to appropriate health care and to a secure and adequate income.

I am proud to be able to look back at work Age International has done in the last decade to change and improve health policies, systems and procedures in many different countries. And I am particularly proud of our achievements, in close partnership with others, in testing, demonstrating the value of, and then securing the introduction, of social pensions in countries where there were none before. These achievements, often the result of painstaking piloting and diplomatic advocacy and influencing of policymakers, will continue to bring benefits to millions of older people in the future. Age International can, and must, do much more in these areas of income and health, and Age International is committed to doing so in the confident knowledge of the impact – the leverage – that our efforts will bring to future generations.

Are there areas of work where I wish we had done more? Of course there are. I think about an older man I met in Ethiopia. We stood together on what, in his childhood, had been the edge of a huge lake that was the basis of his community’s livelihood. In the past the lake had provided drinking water for people and for the goats they herded, and water for crops. Now, as he and I looked out together, the lake had receded so much – the result of drought and climate change – that we could hardly see the water in the distance. He told me about the coping mechanisms that the community of his childhood had had in times of drought, to help everyone to get by. But now the water was almost gone, and life was much, much more precarious.

The impact of climate change is going to take a toll on us all, but especially on the lives of the world’s poorest people, and among them a rapidly growing number of older people too. We need to do more in this vital area, and to work out what our best contribution is going to be.

As the world continues to age, with the number and proportion of older people continuing to rise at unprecedented rates, the work of Age International and its partners becomes even more relevant. I am proud to pass the baton of leadership to others, and in doing so to thank my wonderful staff team, trustees and international partners, and to wish them all well in the years ahead."

Age UK and Age International thank Chris for all he has done for us and wish him the best for whatever comes next.