Panel, Implementation of Agenda 2030 Under the CRPD: the Future We Want

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SOCIAL FORUM 5 October 2016; 15:00-15:25

Kristin Lange Panel, Implementation of Agenda 2030 under the CRPD: The Future We Want

International Organization perspective

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). While celebrating progress, we also recognize that we still have some way to go in fully realizing the rights enshrined in the Convention. The pledge of the 2030 Agenda to ‘leave no one behind’ calls for a coordinated approach to more fully realize the human rights of persons with disabilities.

The UN system as a whole is aligning its programmes to support member states to implement the 2030 Agenda. For the commitment of ‘leaving no one behind’ to truly be realized however, we need to increase international organization’s engagement on the rights of persons with disabilities and address a number of challenges to ensure that persons with disabilities are fully included in this process.

Key to realizing the vision of the 2030 Agenda is to ensure that persons with disabilities are engaged as partners and active participants in development and humanitarian processes, including through the building of closer linkages between international organizations and organizations of persons with disabilities.

We often talk about capacity building of international organizations. For capacity to be built at a systemic level we need to develop appropriate and sustainable systems to promote disability inclusion across all areas of development; and to systematically include the concerns and the voices of persons with disabilities in humanitarian action. International cooperation is a powerful tool to ensure this inclusion and involvement. In that vein, we need to ensure that international cooperation agreements are inclusive of persons with disabilities, such as by including disability markers. Budgeting for humanitarian and development programming needs to include dedicated resources both for mainstreaming disability and to meet the specific needs of persons with disabilities. We also need to address the challenges around current systems of disability data collection and analysis, which do not allow for comparison of data and effective monitoring and tracking of progress against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Further, to support all stake-holders involved in achieving the goal of ‘leaving no one behind’, it is necessary to develop Guidelines for SDGs and CRPD implementation.

Too often, in develop and humanitarian programming, persons with disabilities are viewed as a homogenous group. However, we need to recognize that individual differences play a central role in determining opportunities, capacities, needs and vulnerability. For example, some individuals may be particularly marginalized from opportunities for participation in development processes, such as persons with multiple disabilities, or those with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities. Persons with disabilities may also face multiple and intersecting Check against delivery discrimination on the basis of disability and other diversity factors that we all share. For example, women and girls with disabilities face discrimination on the basis of both disability and gender; and the specific needs and capacities of children and older persons with disabilities are often not taken into account by development and humanitarian actors. Further, some individuals may be exposed to compounding risks of human rights abuses, such as persons with disabilities who are displaced or stateless, are in situations of armed conflict, or post- conflict, or living in institutions. For persons with disabilities to truly no longer be ‘left behind’, we need to ensure that multiple and intersecting dimensions of exclusion, discrimination and vulnerability are not overlooked.

The SDGs aim to realise human rights for all. For us to support member states to realize this vision of the 2030 Agenda, we need to seize the opportunity presented by the framework, and to work towards a more coordinated approach to development and humanitarian action, which advances the rights of all people, including persons with disabilities.