In DRC, HI is supporting persons with disabilities, such as Jacques and his mother Jeanne, to be fully included in society. | © R. Colfs / HI
In DRC, HI is supporting persons with disabilities, such as Jacques and his mother Jeanne, to be fully included in society. | © R. Colfs / HI
One billion persons have a disability worldwide. However, meaningful inclusion remains a challenge – between 2014 and 2018, less than 2% of international aid was disability relevant.
The Global Disability Summit (GDS) is the second summit of its kind. The first one brought stakeholders from different governments, civil society organizations, the UN and organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) together in 2018, to discuss disability inclusion and inclusive development.
Disability inclusion is a key topic: about 1 billion persons, that is 15% of the global population, have a disability – and this is only an estimate due to lacking global disability data. They are the largest minority group in the world.
Because of a lack of awareness amongst governments and service providers, persons with disabilities face many barriers, such as accessibility factors. However, one of the main barriers is attitudinal, as they face a lot of stigma and discrimination. One of the major challenges today is awareness raising, to show that persons with disabilities have equal rights and must have access to services just like everybody else.
The GDS is important because of the momentum that the disability rights movement is gaining globally. We really want to keep those conversations, those partnerships going. It is also extremely important to hold stakeholders accountable to implement their commitments and ensure they are including persons with disabilities and OPDs in all of their programs, policies and initiatives.
A report by the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities found that between 2014 and 2018, less than 2% of international aid was disability relevant. So international stakeholders must really continue to support funding, providing more direct support to OPDs and pay them for their expertise.
Inclusive health, inclusive education and inclusive humanitarian action are part of the topics and themes that were produced by the Summit Secretariat. They are also pillars to HI's work and interventions.
In inclusive education, HI commits to working with local education actors to train teachers to include students with disabilities. The work will include a focus on supporting children and young people with a range of diverse and complex needs, such as intellectual disabilities, communication disabilities and psychosocial disabilities. HI commits to developing a guidebook and toolkits within the next 2 years, to developing research on the itinerant teacher and support mechanism model, and to applying these innovations in at least five new flagship projects over the next 2 years. Amongst other actions, HI also commits to advocating for funding efforts, to strengthen inclusive education systems and increase investments, in international platforms and networks.
For the health sector, HI is focusing on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). Among other items, the organization is committing to develop at least four new inclusive SRHR projects over the next four years, through meaningful participation of organizations of persons with disabilities. In addition, through continued and renewed advocacy with key partners, HI commits to influence at least four policies, strategic planning or budgeting processes in the USA, Canada, UK and EU in the next 4 years.
Persons with disabilities are routinely ignored during disaster preparedness and often left behind when disaster strikes. More climate-induced disasters will increase the vulnerability of persons with disabilities. To fight against that, amongst others, HI is committing to support persons with disabilities to meaningfully participate in humanitarian responses. By the end of 2025, the organization will develop, pilot and share two sets of tools for field professionals and three lessons learned from case studies.
HI has also created a commitment on meaningful engagement and sustained partnerships with OPDs across all of its projects. Throughout livelihood and education initiatives, HI will implement capacity building on advocacy and inclusive policies in five countries by the end of 2026. The organization has also made a commitment to acknowledging disability, gender and age as cross cutting components and critical vulnerability factors for populations affected by sudden onset or long-term crisis or poverty. Recognizing the diversity of the disability community, HI is committing to implement its disability, gender and age framework within all its projects by the end of 2023, to ensure that further marginalized groups, such as persons with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, receive equal opportunities and representation in all initiatives.
The meaningful participation and inclusion of persons with disabilities is also key in many other topics, such as climate action and disaster risk reduction. HI attended COP in Glasgow in 2021 and disability inclusion was not at all on people’s radar.
We need to increase the scale and ensure that disability inclusion is meaningful, not just a tick mark. HI is definitely advocating for more funding on inclusion projects. The organization also wants stakeholders to be intentional about disability inclusion from the very beginning and include OPDs in the design of their projects.
HI is expecting more dedication from States, UN entities and donors to support inclusive actions. Commitments are not legally binding agreements and there was a lack of response from some stakeholders at the last summit. For this Summit, there has to be more pressure, more follow-up. Commitments have to be much more time bound and practical, so that they are more likely to be achieved.
Ruby Holmes is an inclusive governance global specialist. She has been working at HI for over 3 years and represents the organization in a number of international consortiums. She is working alongside HI teams to help them support civil society and organizations of persons with disabilities, through training materials, capacity-building workshops, advocacy events, etc. She is making sure HI is partnering with local organizations and that they're being engaged in a very meaningful way.
