Inclusive Development for and with Persons with Disabilities

Urges Member States, United Nations agencies, international and regional organizations, regional integration organizations and financial institutions to make a concerted effort to include persons with disabilities and to integrate the principles of non-discrimination, accessibility and inclusion into the monitoring and evaluation of the Sustainable Development Goals;

Urges Member States, United Nations agencies and other stakeholders, in cooperation with women and girls with disabilities, including through their representative organizations, to design and implement policies and programmes to fulfil the rights of women and girls with disabilities, and to ensure that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is inclusive of and accessible to women and girls with disabilities;

Also urges Member States, United Nations agencies and other stakeholders, in cooperation with persons with disabilities, including through their representative organizations, to design and implement policies and programmes to fulfil the rights of persons with disabilities, including through developing, reviewing and strengthening inclusive policies to address the historical, structural and underlying causes and risk factors of violence against persons with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities, and to ensure that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities;

Calls upon States to take all measures necessary to ensure the full enjoyment by children with disabilities of all human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis with other children, with the best interests of the child as a primary consideration in all actions concerning children with disabilities;

Encourages Member States, the United Nations system and other stakeholders to foster cooperation and to further improve coordination among existing international processes and instruments in order to advance a disability-inclusive global agenda and to facilitate cross-learning and the sharing of information, practices, tools and resources that are inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities;

Encourages Member States, the United Nations system and relevant stakeholders to support the empowerment, full, equal and meaningful participation and leadership of persons with disabilities in the planning, consultation and decision-making processes on disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and mitigation, and other climate change policies and programmes, and recognizing the heightened risks and disproportionate impact faced by persons with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities, in the context of climate change, environmental degradation, pollution and other environmental damage;

Also encourages Member States, the United Nations system and relevant stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector, to ensure participation of persons with disabilities, including through their representative organizations, in the strengthening of ongoing efforts, coordination and decision-making processes in the humanitarian, disaster and development spheres towards disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction and humanitarian action, especially those relating to the development of early warning systems and in emergency preparedness, planning and, as appropriate, response, and in climate change adaptation, so as to strengthen resilience, better mitigate risks and support pathways towards recovery and development and to establish partnerships and networks in the disaster risk reduction and humanitarian domains, while ensuring that protection mechanisms in emergency and post-crisis contexts are in place to prevent and respond to risks of persons with disabilities being exposed to violence, exploitation and abuse;

Urges Member States to ensure that persons with disabilities and their families, including women and girls, have access to a range of support services, information in accessible formats and education, including on how to prevent, recognize and report instances of exploitation, violence and abuse, as well as how to ensure that persons with disabilities, in particular children, have a safe and supportive family environment;

Also urges Member States to ensure affordable and accessible Internet for persons with disabilities, and to include them and their representative organizations at every stage of development of information and communications technologies, including with regard to telehealth, distance learning and remote work;

Encourages Governments, the private sector, international, regional and subregional organizations, civil society, the media, academia and research institutions and technical communities and individuals to strengthen international cooperation on the use of digital technologies, including artificial intelligence capacity-building, and take necessary and positive steps, as appropriate, to eliminate barriers faced by all people, especially persons with disabilities, in their ability to utilize and benefit from digital technologies on an equitable basis with others;

Encourages the mobilization of resources on a sustainable basis to mainstream disability, including the rights of persons with disabilities, into development at all levels, and in this regard underlines the need to promote and strengthen international cooperation, including North-South, South-South and triangular cooperation, in support of national efforts, including, as appropriate, through the establishment of national mechanisms, in particular in developing countries;

Encourages Member States, United Nations organizations and mechanisms, including the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General on Disability and Accessibility and the regional commissions, to make all efforts to engage with and ensure accessibility for the full and effective participation and inclusion of persons with disabilities, in cooperation with organizations of persons with disabilities and, as appropriate, national human rights institutions, in development processes and decision-making at the local, national, regional and international levels;

Encourages the Commission for Social Development, within its mandate, to continue to provide its relevant input regarding persons with disabilities to the Economic and Social Council and to the high-level political forum on sustainable development, as appropriate, in order to support the relevant discussions on persons with disabilities in the follow-up to the 2030 Agenda;

Encourages Member States that have not yet done so to adopt a national disability strategy that can be operationalized, including through measurable and appropriate targets and indicators, and that assigns responsibility to and incorporates the views of a broad range of stakeholders, including persons with disabilities and their representative organizations;

Calls upon Member States, relevant regional organizations and United Nations bodies and agencies to take into account the rights, participation, inclusion, perspectives and needs of persons with disabilities on an equal basis with others in ensuring that all development policies and programmes, including those regarding poverty eradication, discrimination and the elimination of all forms of violence and abuse, particularly against women and girls with disabilities, social protection, inclusive and equitable quality education and basic services, full and productive employment and decent work, and appropriate measures for financial inclusion, as well as urban and rural planning and accessible community and housing development, including the objectives and principles of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the goals of the 2030 Agenda, are translated into concrete actions;

Encourages Member States, international development institutions and other stakeholders, including those in the private sector, to promote accessibility, including through the application of universal design in all aspects of urban and rural development, including the planning, design and construction of physical and virtual environments, public spaces, transportation and public services, as well as to promote access to and the accessibility of information and communication, including information and communications technologies and systems, and assistive devices and technologies, and to ensure that accessibility is promoted to achieve inclusive societies and development;

Encourages Member States to eliminate barriers faced by persons with disabilities in accessing water, sanitation and hygiene, including physical, institutional, social and attitudinal barriers, and recognizing that assistive technologies help in making water, sanitation and hygiene accessible;

Calls upon Member States and other stakeholders to include persons with disabilities in all stages of policymaking and decision-making related to coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response and recovery and future and public health emergencies, as well to eliminate barriers and discrimination against persons with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities, and those in vulnerable situations, in accessing support and healthcare services on an equal basis with others, and to prevent, monitor and address the disproportionate effects of the pandemic on persons with disabilities, including the lack of accessible communications, support and services, as well as the unique challenges and barriers that they will face following the end of the pandemic;

Urges Member States to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to assistive technologies, rehabilitation and independent living support services, including in-home, residential, educational institution and other community support services, to enable them to maximize their well-being and realize their independence and full participation in society and to prevent isolation and segregation from the community, and in this regard encourages Member States to promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in designing and implementing independent living support services for persons with disabilities;

Urges Member States and regional and local governments to promote appropriate measures in cities and other human settlements that facilitate the access of persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment of cities, in particular to public spaces, public transport, housing, workplaces, water and sanitation, education and health facilities, public information and communication (including information and communications technologies and systems) and other facilities and services open or provided to the public in both rural and urban areas to reduce the inequalities and expedite inclusive and sustainable development for persons with disabilities;

Calls upon Member States to enhance efforts to facilitate international trade of assistive technologies, in line with their international trade agreements, to address inequalities experienced by persons with disabilities and to promote the local production of and capacity-building initiatives for assistive products, especially in developing countries, including through research and development, and to foster greater accessibility to, as well as affordability and efficacy of assistive products in line with the goals of disability-inclusive development;

Urges Member States, at the local, regional and national levels, to improve road safety for persons with disabilities and to integrate road safety into sustainable mobility and transport infrastructure planning and design in cities and other human settlements;

Requests the United Nations system to facilitate technical assistance, within existing resources, including the provision of assistance for capacity-building and for the collection and compilation of national data and statistics on persons with disabilities, in particular to developing countries, and in this regard requests the Secretary-General, in accordance with existing international guidelines on disability statistics, to analyse, publish and disseminate disability data and statistics in future periodic reports, as appropriate, on the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals for persons with disabilities;

Encourages the Statistical Commission, within existing resources, to update guidelines for the collection and analysis of data on persons with disabilities, taking into consideration relevant recommendations of the Washington Group on Disability Statistics, and also encourages the United Nations system, including the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, within the scope of her mandate, to strengthen coherence and coordination across the United Nations system in order to promote the availability of internationally comparable data on the situation of persons with disabilities and to regularly include relevant data on disability or relevant qualitative facts, as appropriate, in relevant United Nations publications in the field of economic and social development;

Encourages Member States to take appropriate steps to expedite the mainstreaming of data on disability into official statistics, including by collecting data disaggregated by sex, age and disability status using appropriate measurement tools, including, as appropriate, the United Nations Children’s Fund Module on Child Functioning and the tools produced by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics, by examining underlying concepts, purposes and advantages of existing relevant data-collection tools and instruments and urging all relevant stakeholders to work with the United Nations to provide urgently needed baseline data for monitoring progress in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals for persons with disabilities, to strengthen national capacities in that regard and to enhance capacity-building support for developing countries, including the least developed countries and small island developing States;

Requests the Secretary-General, in coordination with relevant United Nations entities, to compile and analyse international, regional and national policies, programmes, best practices and available statistics regarding persons with disabilities, reflecting progress made in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to submit this analysis in a flagship report in 2030, within existing resources, and with the participation of persons with disabilities, including through their representative organizations, in both the collection and analysis of data;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its eightieth session a progress report on steps taken by the United Nations system towards mainstreaming disability inclusion, including implementation of the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy, within existing resources, and to envisage the financial sustainability of the United Nations system-wide coordination and monitoring activities of the Strategy, and encourages the United Nations system, including its agencies, funds and programmes, within their respective mandates, to continue to work collaboratively to accelerate the full and effective mainstreaming of disability inclusion, including by implementing the Strategy in the United Nations system, and report on it;

Requests the Secretary-General, in coordination with all relevant United Nations entities, to submit information to the General Assembly at its eighty-first session on the implementation of the present resolution and of the outcome document of the high-level meeting of the Assembly on the realization of the Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals for persons with disabilities: the way forward, a disability-inclusive development agenda towards 2015 and beyond,²⁴ and to make appropriate recommendations to further strengthen implementation;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to ensure that the relevant offices in the United Nations system, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat and other relevant offices, have adequate human and financial resources for the fulfilment of their tasks with respect to their work in mainstreaming the rights, participation, perspectives, needs and well-being of persons with disabilities into the 2030 Agenda, and in ensuring the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the decision-making processes that impact them.