Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to include older women in international development (a) policies and (b) commitments.

The UK Government is committed to equality and opportunity for all, with a particular focus on those most likely to be marginalised and discriminated against, including on the grounds of their age. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) focuses on those with intersecting forms of disadvantage, like women and girls with disabilities, and we include age as a dimension in our efforts to ensure inclusion and our approach to leaving no one behind.

The FCDO recognises that meaningful engagement on ageing is impossible without good quality data. Our Inclusive Data Action Plan details our approach to ensure that data is disaggregated by age, disability, sex and geography. At a multilateral level, the UK has engaged closely with the work of the UN's Open Ended Working Group on Ageing and has supported UN resolutions on the human rights of older people.