Conference Background & Objectives

Population ageing is a global phenomenon. The UN estimates that by the year 2050 the number of people 65+ years old will increase dramatically from 600 m now to 2 billion then. This trend holds for both developed and developing nations.

A sustainable development of an economy heavily depends on anticipatory answers to the resulting economic and societal challenges. In this respect Europe has to meet the global competition, particularly from the USA and Japan. Only those who identify the demographic change as an opportunity for their region will gain a competitive advantage and create new jobs.

Today's senior people are healthier, more mobile and qualified, and command more purchasing power than any generation before. Their needs and expectations are diverse, but all of them aspire a high quality of life and high quality services that meet their individual wants. This leads to increasing demand for new products and services - a growing market which more and more entrepreneurs discover. At the same time, new opportunities for qualified jobs develop. A wide variety of sectors can profit from this new Silver Market - amongst them construction housing, public services, health and leisure, sports, culture, tourism, new media, telecommunications, financial services. This also refers to SMEs which are mostly active in a regional context.

In December of 2003, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia invited European regions and NGOs to a highly successful workshop in Brussels, and there the idea of creating a Silver Economy Network of the European Regions - SEN@ER - was launched. The objectives of such a network will be:

Initiator of this network is the Senior Economy Initiative of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Here the state government, senior groups, industry, unions, crafts and trades as well as research organisations cooperate. This Initiative will invite, together with the European Union (its involvement is under negotiation), European regions to an initial "Silver Economy Conference" to take place in Bonn, Germany, in February 2005. This meeting will become a showcase of regional development initiatives to foster the development of a silver economy at the regional level. It will be accompanied by an exhibition and awards for outstanding best practice examples in this field which demonstrate how Europe already today meets the challenges and opportunities of an ageing society. Furthermore, new concepts and approaches to stimulate such developments will be discussed together. The meeting will contribute towards the Union establishing itself as the key global market and economic area which proactively copes with these new issues, and it will support the learning from each other and the transfer of experience and know-how to other regions. It is foreseen that such an conference will become an integral activity of the network to take place annually in another region of Europe.