Call for Experts for the “WHO South-East Asia Regional Technical Advisory Group on Healthy Ageing”

15 April 2026
Call for experts

Issued on 15 April 2026

Deadline: 6 May 2026

The World Health Organization Office for South-East Asia Region (WHO-SEAR) is seeking experts to serve as members of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Healthy Ageing (HA). This “Call for experts” provides information about the advisory group in question, the expert profiles being sought, the process to express interest, and the process of selection.

Background

Population ageing in the World Health Organization South-East Asia Region is accelerating rapidly, with significant implications for health systems, long-term care, and social protection mechanisms. In October 2025, at the Seventy-eighth Session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia, Member States adopted the Colombo Declaration on Healthy Ageing through Strengthened Primary Health Care. During the Ministerial Round Table discussions, a key request from Member States was for sustained technical support and structured expert guidance from WHO to translate these commitments into operational reforms.

To ensure that WHO SEARO is well-positioned to provide high-quality, evidence-informed, and consensus-based guidance to Member States, it is proposed to establish a Regional Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Healthy Ageing.

The Technical Advisory Group (TAG) will serve as an advisory body to the Regional Director/Officer in Charge of WHO SEARO in this domain. The proposed TAG on Healthy Ageing will provide strategic guidance to strengthen programmes and strategies on Healthy Ageing, enhance learning on implementation of an integrated continuum of health and long-term care, including palliative care within primary health care settings, promote age-friendly environments, and support efforts to combat ageism across the Region.

Engagement with TAG members will help contextualize WHO SEARO’s technical advice and strengthen its meaningful support to Member States in operationalizing commitments and advancing implementation of the Regional Strategy for Healthy Ageing (2024-2030) and the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021-2030), making progress towards the commitments made in the Colombo Declaration - 2025 and contributing to the broader Sustainable Development Agenda for 2030. 

Functions of the WHO SEAR Technical Advisory Group on Healthy Ageing

In its capacity as an advisory body to the World Health Organization Regional Office for South-East Asia (WHO SEARO), the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Healthy Ageing will provide strategic and technical guidance to the Regional Director/Officer-in-Charge to strengthen the development, implementation and monitoring of national healthy ageing programmes, and to accelerate progress towards commitments under the Colombo Declaration on Healthy Ageing (2025), the Regional Strategy for Healthy Ageing (2024-2030), and the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021-2030).

Specifically, the WHO SEAR TAG on Healthy Ageing shall:

  1. Review the scientific, technical, and strategic aspects of Member States’ policies and plans in the South-East Asia Region, as well as WHO normative guidance and tools, and other relevant work undertaken by partners and stakeholders on healthy ageing.
  2. Provide strategic and operational recommendations to SEARO to advance commitments under the Colombo Declaration (2025) and implement the Regional Strategy for Healthy Ageing (2024-2030) and the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2020–2030). This includes strengthening regional and national capacity, supporting the adaptation of WHO normative tools to country contexts, enhancing multisectoral coordination, promoting scalable approaches in resource-constrained settings, developing the health and care workforce, including formal workers and informal carers, and strengthening systems to ensure that older people can access person-centred, continuous health and care services close to where they live without financial hardship.
  3. Identify and recommend priority areas for partnerships, research, cross-country learning, and advocacy in support of healthy ageing, including mechanisms to facilitate knowledge exchange, scale up best practices, and strengthen evidence-informed action across the Region.

Operations of the Technical Advisory Group on Healthy Ageing

  1. The TAG - Healthy Ageing shall normally meet at least once each year. However, the WHO may convene additional meetings.  WHO SEAR TAG - Healthy Ageing meetings may be held in person at WHO SEARO in Delhi or another location, as determined by WHO SEARO, or virtually, via video or teleconference.
    TAG - Healthy Ageing meetings may be held in open and/or closed sessions, as decided by the Chairperson in consultation with WHO.
    • Open sessions: Open sessions shall be convened for the sole purpose of the exchange of non-confidential information and views and may be attended by Observers (as defined in paragraph III.3 below).
    • Closed sessions: The sessions dealing with the formulation of recommendations and/or advice to WHO shall be restricted to the members of the TAG - Healthy Ageing and essential WHO Secretariat staff.
  2. The quorum for TAG - Healthy Ageing meetings shall be two-thirds of the members.
  3. WHO may, at its sole discretion, invite external individuals from time to time to attend the open sessions of an advisory group, or parts thereof, as “observers”. Observers may be invited either in their personal capacity or as representatives of a governmental institution, an intergovernmental organization, or a non-State actor. WHO will request observers invited in their personal capacity to complete a confidentiality undertaking and a declaration of interests form prior to attending a session of the advisory group.  Invitations to observers attending as representatives of non-State actors will be subject to WHO internal due diligence and risk assessment, including conflict-of-interest considerations, in accordance with the Framework for engagement with non-State actors (FENSA). Observers invited as representatives may also be requested to complete a confidentiality undertaking. Observers shall normally attend meetings of the TAG - Healthy Ageing at their own expense and be responsible for making all arrangements in that regard.
  4. At the invitation of the Chairperson, observers may be asked to present their personal views and/or the policies of their organization. Observers will not participate in the adoption of the TAG - Healthy Ageing’s recommendations.
  5. The TAG - Healthy Ageing may decide to establish smaller working groups (sub-groups of the TAG - Healthy Ageing to work on specific issues. Their deliberations shall take place via teleconference or videoconference. For these sub-groups, no quorum requirement will apply; the outcome of their deliberations will be submitted to the TAG - Healthy Ageing for review at one of its meetings.
  6. TAG - Healthy Ageing members are expected to attend meetings. If a member misses two consecutive meetings, WHO may terminate his/her membership on the TAG - Healthy Ageing.
  7. Reports of each meeting, and a yearly report, shall be submitted by the TAG - Healthy Ageing to WHO (the Regional Director-WHO SEARO). All recommendations from the TAG - Healthy Ageing are advisory to WHO, which retains full control over any subsequent decisions or actions regarding any proposals, policy issues, or other matters considered by the TAG - Healthy Ageing.
  8. The TAG - Healthy Ageing shall normally make recommendations by consensus. If, in exceptional circumstances, a consensus on a particular issue cannot be reached, minority opinions will be reflected in the meeting report.
  9. Active participation is expected from all TAG - Healthy Ageing members, including in working groups, teleconferences, and interaction over email. TAG - Healthy Ageing members may, in advance of TAG - Healthy Ageing meetings, be requested to review the meeting materials and provide their views for consideration by TAG - Healthy Ageing.
  10. WHO SEARO shall determine the modes of communication by the TAG - Healthy Ageing, including between WHO SEARO and the TAG - Healthy Ageing members, and the TAG - Healthy Ageing members among themselves.
  11. WHO SEAR TAG - Healthy Ageing members shall not speak on behalf of, or represent, the TAG - Healthy Ageing or WHO to any third party.

Who can express interest?

The WHO SEAR Technical Advisory Group on Healthy Ageing will be multidisciplinary, with members who have a range of technical knowledge, skills and experience relevant to strengthen programmes and strategies on Healthy Ageing, enhance learning on implementation of an integrated continuum of long-term care including palliative care within primary health care settings, promote age-friendly environments, and support efforts to combat ageism across the Region.

Approximately 6-12 members may be selected. Members are appointed for a term of two years, with the possibility of extension.

World Health Organization Regional Office for South-East Asia (WHO SEARO) welcomes expressions of interest from public health specialists, geriatricians, gerontologists, social scientists, health systems experts, and other professionals with demonstrated expertise in one or more of the following areas:

  • Integrated care models for older people in primary health care, including implementation of the Integrated Care for Older People (ICOPE)
  • Long-term care system design and governance, including home-based care, community-based services, institutional care and caregiver support
  • Geriatric medicine and clinical care of older persons, including frailty, multimorbidity, dementia and functional decline
  • Palliative and end-of-life care integration within health systems
  • Health workforce development for ageing populations, including training and capacity building for formal and informal caregivers
  • Health systems and service delivery for ageing populations, including service integration, financing, quality of care and care coordination
  • Age-friendly environments and communities, including urban planning, accessibility, housing, transportation and social participation
  • Social protection and social care systems for older persons, including pensions, community support systems and social services
  • Ageing-related research, epidemiology and data systems, including monitoring intrinsic capacity, functional ability and healthy ageing indicators
  • Addressing ageism and promoting rights-based and person-centred approaches to ageing policy and programmes

Submitting your expression of interest

To register your interest in being considered for the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Healthy Ageing in SEAR, please submit the following documents by 6 May 2026, 11:55 PM India time] to vermap@who.int  using the subject line “Expression of interest for the WHO Technical Advisory Group on Healthy Ageing in SEAR.

  • A cover letter, indicating your motivation to apply and how you satisfy the selection criteria. Please note that, if selected, membership will be in a personal capacity. Therefore, do not use the letterhead or other identification of your employer.;
  • Your curriculum vitae; and
A signed and completed Declaration of Interests (DOI) form for WHO Experts, available at https://www.who.int/about/ethics/declarations-of-interest.

After submission, your expression of interest will be reviewed by WHO.  Due to an expected high volume of interest, only selected individuals will be informed. 

Important information about the selection processes and conditions of appointment

  • Members of WHO advisory groups (AGs) must be free of any real, potential or apparent conflicts of interest. To this end, applicants are required to complete the WHO Declaration of Interests for WHO Experts, and the selection as a member of a AG is, amongst other things, dependent on WHO determining that there is no conflict of interest or that any identified conflicts could be appropriately managed (in addition to WHO’s evaluation of an applicant’s experience, expertise and motivation and other criteria).
  • All AG members will serve in their individual expert capacity and shall not represent any governments, any commercial industries or entities, any research, academic or civil society organizations, or any other bodies, entities, institutions or organizations. They are expected to fully comply with the Code of Conduct for WHO Experts (https://www.who.int/about/ethics/declarations-of-interest). AG members will be expected to sign and return a completed confidentiality undertaking prior to the beginning of the first meeting.
  • At any point during the selection process, telephone interviews may be scheduled between an applicant and the WHO Secretariat to enable WHO to ask questions relating to the applicant’s experience and expertise and/or to assess whether the applicant meets the criteria for membership in the relevant AG.
  • The selection of members of the AGs will be made by WHO in its sole discretion, taking into account the following (non-exclusive) criteria: relevant technical expertise; experience in international and country policy work; communication skills; and ability to work constructively with people from different cultural backgrounds and orientations .
  • The selection of AG members will also take into account the need for diverse perspectives from different regions, especially from low and middle-income countries, and for gender balance.
  • If selected by WHO, proposed members will be sent an invitation letter and a Memorandum of Agreement. Appointment as a member of a TAG will be subject to the proposed member returning to WHO the countersigned copy of these two documents.
  • WHO reserves the right to accept or reject any expression of interest , to annul the open call process and reject all expressions of interest at any time without incurring any liability to the affected applicant or applicants and without any obligation to inform the affected applicant or applicants of the grounds for WHO's action. WHO may also decide, at any time, not to proceed with the establishment of the AG, disband an existing TAG or modify the work of the AG.
  • WHO shall not in any way be obliged to reveal, or discuss with any applicant, how an expression of interest was assessed, or to provide any other information relating to the evaluation/selection process or to state the reasons for not choosing a member.
  • WHO may publish the names and a short biography of the selected individuals on the WHO internet.
  • TAG members will not be remunerated for their services in relation to the TAG or otherwise. Travel and accommodation expenses of TAG members to participate in TAG meetings will be covered by WHO in accordance with its applicable policies, rules and procedures.
  • The appointment will be limited in time as indicated in the letter of appointment.

If you have any questions about this “Call for experts”, please email Ms Pooja Verma (Email: vermap@who.int) well before the applicable deadline.