Greg Shaw has a science and health administration background and until taking up the position of Director, International and Corporate Relations in June 2003, held senior management positions within the Australian Commonwealth Department Health and Ageing in Australia. Prior to joining the IFA he was the Manager for residential aged and community aged care programs in Western Australia. His long career with the Australian Government included management of the Compliance, Complaint and Accountability Section of the Department, having responsibility for the regulatory regime associated with quality of care and certification programs in both residential and community care services. His earlier work focused on policy development and program implementation supporting the aged care needs of rural and remote communities throughout northern Australia. An advocate of the aged care needs of marginalized community groups in the 1990s, he worked with many Aboriginal and ethnic communities resulting in the establishment of aged care homes and community aged care services specifically designed and targeted for those communities. Since joining the IFA Greg Shaw has had responsibility for the development of the Building Capacity in Health Care Programs in Africa, worked closely with the South African Human Rights Commission to establish an older person's forum in that country and in 2010 worked with the Government of Mauritius on the establishment of an Observatory on Ageing.
He represents the IFA at the United Nations, works closely with government and has responsibility for IFA elder abuse initiatives. Elder Abuse initiatives have included the development of educational toolkits targeted towards youth; in 2011 he was responsible for convening an International Forum on Sexual Safety of Older Women and in 2013 will lead a high level meeting to examine issues of financial abuse of Canadian seniors.
In 2013 he has been working with other Civil Society Organizations on the Global Thematic Consultations on Population Dynamics, Post-2015 Development Agenda to ensure the needs of older people are recognized. Current priorities include the establishment of the IFA International Centre of Excellence on Ageing (Istanbul), the IFA Copenhagen Summit (Denmark) - a new platform that will respond to major gaps in ageing on a world stage, and knowledge mobilization initiatives on vision health and adult immunization. Greg also has responsibility for Age-Friendly Cities/Communities (AFCC) initiatives within the IFA that includes providing technical advice and support to government and others engaged in age-friendly program development. His expertise in this field has been recognized through a recent Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for a new city development in China and ongoing AFCC work with the city of Akita in Japan.