MALAYSIA must translate major demographic shifts into laws, budget allocations and concrete government action, rather than treating ageing populations, smaller families and changing intergenerational needs as statistics alone, Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Johari Abdul said.
He said population and development issues were ultimately political because public priorities had to be reflected in legislation, institutions and government spending.
“Words create attention. Attention creates pressure. Pressure creates priorities and priorities eventually appear in legislation, institutions and budgets,” he said at a welcome dinner for participants of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) Annual Conference 2026 here on Thursday.
Johari said ageing, often viewed in political circles through criticism or speculation, should instead be treated as a major policy issue requiring sustained parliamentary attention.
“Parliamentarians have a complicated relationship with age. When we are young, people tell us we lack experience. When we acquire experience, people begin asking when we intend to retire.
“So, I am delighted to attend a conference where, for once, ageing is neither criticism nor speculation. It is an important item on the agenda,” he said.
He said the demographic challenge extended beyond population numbers to how societies prepared young people for adulthood, supported families, recognised the value of care work and enabled women to participate fully in society.
It also involved addressing longer life expectancy as family sizes continued to shrink, he said.
Johari stressed that demographic change required long-term political planning because population trends unfolded over decades, while electoral politics typically operated within much shorter cycles.
“Words create attention. Attention creates pressure. Pressure creates priorities and priorities eventually appear in legislation, institutions and budgets,” he said, underscoring the need for demographic concerns to translate into concrete policy outcomes.
Johari also highlighted Malaysia’s establishment of the AFPPD Global Secretariat in Kuala Lumpur, describing it as a new platform for parliamentary cooperation on population and development.
He said the initiative began after AFPPD Malaysia returned from Tokyo in April 2024, when Howard Lee Chuan How approached him with a proposal for Malaysia to host the secretariat.
Lee had explained why Malaysia was well positioned to host the secretariat and why Parliament needed to provide the necessary political and institutional support, Johari said.
Johari subsequently participated in an AFPPD Malaysia regional meeting in Kuala Lumpur in July 2024 focused on preparations for population ageing and the care economy.
“Two years later, the Global Secretariat is here. So, Howard (Lee), congratulations. You kept pursuing it through Parliament, government and AFPPD, and you have delivered what you said Malaysia should set out to achieve,” he added.
Johari congratulated AFPPD, its member states, Works Minister and AFPPD Malaysia president Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi and the entire team on establishing the secretariat in Malaysia.
He said its success should not be measured by the number of conferences or communiques produced, but by whether parliamentary cooperation resulted in laws, budget allocations, oversight and concrete action.
The inauguration of the AFPPD Global Secretariat office in Kuala Lumpur on Friday would mark a new chapter in parliamentary cooperation on population and development, he said.
The two-day conference, themed “Parliamentary Leadership for the Future: An All of Society Approach to the Care Economy and Demographic Resilience”, brings together parliamentarians from Asia, the Pacific, Africa and the Arab world. - September 4, 2026
