As a young leader of a community-based organization serving older people, I am often asked what motivates me. My answer is always that, beyond fulfilling a humanitarian obligation, it is actually in the best interest of young people to create age-friendly communities. This is because, while young people currently comprise over 75% of the population in Uganda, the increase in Ugandans’ average lifespan from 50 years in 2002 to 68 years in 2022, as revealed in recent data from the Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) released in March this year, should both excite and prompt them to action. This extended life expectancy means that today’s young people can expect to live longer, underscoring the importance of shaping the community they wish to age in.

Historically, elderly care in our African communities was primarily a reciprocal kinship responsibility, supported by the extended family structure. Multiple generations—parents, children, and grandchildren—often lived together, diminishing the need for legal safeguards or formal welfare systems. However, urban migration, economic pressures, nucleation of the family, and social assimilation have weakened this traditional kinship care and support system. Thus, without proactive structural, institutional, and policy interventions, today’s young people are more likely to experience isolation, loneliness, and abuse in old age—much more than the elderly of today, who still benefit, to some extent, from the remnants of traditional family safeguards.

So, whereas it’s natural for young people to prioritize immediate interests, it seems more prudent for them to leverage the advantages they enjoy today to cultivate an age-friendly environment, for the sake of today’s elderly, but also for themselves when they inevitably enter the elderly demographic in the next about 30 years.

In particular, the young people should advocate for the protection, preservation, and advancement of the rights and social security of older persons, leveraging their dominance of influential sectors to influence decision-making processes and address the vulnerability faced by older people due to neglect of their rights. For example, although the 12.3 percent representation of parliamentarians aged 35 years and below in the 11^th parliament is disproportional to the overall population of young people, it is still substantial enough to advocate for age-friendly legislative reforms.

Indeed, given that our political system is designed to serve the interests of the majority, young people can leverage their demographic dominance, comprising at least 75 percent of the population, to exert significant influence. They can use their numerical advantage and electoral vote power to compel political actors at all levels, from grassroots to national, to enact bylaws, formulate policies, and implement programs that prioritize the welfare needs of older persons and address their functional limitations, thereby aiding them in aging with dignity.

Additionally, young people’s proficiency in navigating digital spaces, gives them significant influence over online platforms, social media, and other emerging digital domains. Through these mediums, they can shape discussions and set trends as change agents through online activism and campaigns, utilizing their tech-savviness to combat age-related stereotypes, prejudices, and discrimination that perpetuate loneliness, isolation, and even abuse of older people today.

Meanwhile, although aging is a universal concern, effective care requires context specificity. For example, while residential care homes may suffice in Europe, they may not be as suitable in our communities where older people prefer to age in their ancestral lands. Young people should therefore leverage their knack for innovation and pioneer creative long-term care solutions that honor cultural heritage and align with Uganda’s socio-economic context.

In these, and many other ways, young people can ensure their well-being in old age by helping cultivate a culture of generational solidarity and fostering an age-inclusive environment where everyone can thrive, irrespective of age. This, of course, takes time. But what better time to begin building it than now, while the advantages of youth endure, and young people have unprecedented influence over our country’s social, economic, and political processes?