Alexandre Kalache

The Brazilian medical gerontologist, Alexandre Kalache, has been a leading protagonist on issues relating to population ageing for five decades – as an academic (at the universities of London and Oxford); as an international civil servant (as Director of the global ageing department at the World Health Organisation, WHO); and as an advocate (as founder and President of the International Longevity Centre- Brazil (ILC-BR) - part of a network of think-tanks in sixteen countries that was the brain child of his friend and mentor, the late Bob Butler). More than 50 years ago, Kalache was one of the very first scholars to recognise that population ageing was not just a developed country issue. Rather, that the process would happen in the developing world much faster, in even greater numbers, and on top of the unresolved development concerns. (It is currently forecast that 80% of the world’s older persons will live in developing regions by 2050). As WHO Director, he conceived and launched the WHO Active Ageing Policy Framework and, anchored on that, the WHO Age-Friendly Cities and Communities initiatives which continue to underpin much of that organisation’s work on ageing. Following thirteen years at WHO’s Geneva headquarters, Dr Kalache spent two years based at the New York Academy of Medicine where he guided the implementation of the Age-Friendly New York City project in close collaboration with the mayor’s office, academic and civil societies organizations. He is closely involved in the codifying of legal rights and protections of older persons, particularly at the UN level and been a strong life-long advocate of anti-ageism (including publishing an anti-ageism pocket handbook in 2025). Kalache is a member of the Brazilian National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the British Royal College of Physicians as well as of the World Economic Forum among many notable organizations and is the recipient of multiple international awards. He has very longstanding relationships with every major organisation working globally on ageing from the IAGG and AARP to HelpAge International. He will be the keynote speaker at the IFA Congress in Cape Town in September.