Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Use of data on older people in inclusive humanitarian programmes

Humanitarian data is a crucial part of the humanitarian system, but older people are regularly excluded from it. If they are missing in the data they are likely to be overlooked in the response. The briefing, "Out of sight, out of mind", contains recommendations for strengthening the understanding of older people’s rights and needs within humanitarian responses and the wider humanitarian system. As the world’s demographics change and the global population ages, older people will increasingly make up a substantial part of crisis-affected populations. Despite improvements in the visibility of older people in humanitarian contexts, there is still a long way to go to bridge the gap between existing guidance and policy and implementation. We need the humanitarian system to ensure all older people access their basic rights to protection and dignity. Gathering data that gives a true understanding of the context and level of need will help with this.