The number of older persons in Africa is growing rapidly: between 2015 and 2030 the number of people aged 60 years or over in the region is projected to increase by more than 63 per cent (United Nations, 2015). Accordingly, the situation of older persons in Africa, in particular with respect to their well being, is a matter of growing concern among researchers and policymakers alike. This report provides an extensive directory of research on ageing in Africa covering the period 2004-2015, updating the Directory of Research on Ageing in Africa: 1995-2003 prepared previously by Dr. Paul Kowal for the World Health Organization. The Directory aims to profile, promote and encourage research into the health and needs of people aged 50 years or over in Africa, and to enable the use of evidence for policy. Such evidence is essential to enable countries undergoing rapid demographic and epidemiological transitions to develop appropriate policy responses and to monitor the implementation and impact of those policies.
The Directory includes descriptions of research activities submitted by primary investigators, with minimal editing. The submissions were summarized according to how the research results addressed the policy directions of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing (MIPAA), and the research methods that have been applied. Taken as a whole, the Directory demonstrates the growing body of rigorous and in-depth research into ageing across Africa. While not all research on ageing in Africa has been included here, a review of the updated Directory indicates that research has been less active in some countries, and that some high-priority areas of research remain under-investigated. The process of creating the Directory revealed the difficulty of identifying research on ageing in Africa through searches of high-impact peer reviewed journals or standard bibliographic search engines. Much of the published research evidence on ageing in Africa presented in this Directory was identified through detailed internet searches or through the direct contributions of research collaborators.