International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
December 3rd every year marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities. It was instituted in 1992 by the United Nations, to promote an understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. The theme of the 2023 International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) is: "United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities".
I recently presented before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters on 11th October, a week before CBM Ireland celebrated our 20th anniversary since being established in Ireland. The focus of the discussion at the Disability Matters Committee was on Article 32 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and how the CRPD interacts with the Sustainable Development Goals which aim to achieve progress in all countries, for all people.
Article 32 of the CRPD directs international co-operation (overseas aid) to be inclusive of persons with disabilities. Having ratified the UN Convention here in Ireland, this means that Ireland’s overseas development assistance should be inclusive of people with disabilities. I highlighted this in my comments to the Committee and welcomed the intervention of Irish Aid’s Director General Michael Gaffey who outlined that Irish Aid is committed, but that it still has a lot of work to do.
As I told the Committee on the 11th, I know from my 20 years working in development how easy it is to use the right words while people with disabilities remain overlooked, often forgotten. I can only look back at my own work now and realise how little consideration I and some of the organisations I worked for, as well as the wider international community, gave to the needs and specific rights of people with disabilities. I did not know what I did not know. Often, the need to do something or do a lot, and quickly, in humanitarian action means not finding the necessary time to find, understand and respond to the specific needs of persons with disability, which results in them being excluded, even with the best of intentions.
To be disability inclusive, to realise the SDGs, with and for people with disabilities, requires a concerted, clearminded and unambiguous commitment, both strategic and financial. The Sustainable Development Goals are being met in Ireland in the main, but across the globe, in locations that do not have the resources Ireland has, they are barely seeing any progress – and in many cases, due to war and disasters, regression is occurring.
The SDGs barely recognise people with disabilities. It feels like technical jargon, but the SDGs have 169 targets, yet only seven of these specifically address disability; they have 231 indicators, yet only ten of these require disability data disaggregation and only two of them have any available data to disaggregate.
There is an old business adage that says, what gets counted, gets done. In the SDGs, people with disabilities are not counted. And if they are not counted, they are invisible. The Irish Government’s overseas aid policy, A Better World, is committed to supporting the achievement of the SDGs. It underpins the policy. And reflecting the SDGs, people with disabilities are only mentioned three times – and in those instances as part of a list of many groups that ought not to be omitted. Irish Aid has committed to looking at this and is taking steps to focus more on disability inclusion.
People with disabilities comprise 16% of the global population, or approximately 1.3 billion people worldwide, and 80% of those live in the developing world. That is 1 billion people with the same rights as everyone but specific and differentiated needs to be able to achieve those rights.
People with disabilities are not homogeneous nor can they be a mere appendix. Different disabilities require different supports, as we in Ireland know. People with disabilities will also benefit from sustainable development through economic progress and social improvement, but there will be millions who will miss out while they wait for the rising tide to raise all boats. Some will unfortunately drown while the tide rises, without dedicated and targeted investment in their inclusion in international co-operation.
In Ireland, we have seen over the last century how the State has not always taken an interest in people with disabilities. Religious groups, Christian congregations, were often the only providers of assistance for people with disabilities and their families who had no one else to turn to. We have seen how the State has increased its support for people with disabilities here in Ireland in more recent decades, imperfect as it may be; how society has changed in its understanding of disability matters, with greater social and economic inclusion, the provision of integrated education, home-care supports etc.
For the 1 billion people living in less prosperous countries, such supports are still a pipe-dream. The reality is stark. With only 15% of the SDGs on target to be met globally, in a framework that barely acknowledges people with disabilities, rescuing the SDGs is a tall order. To do so, for, with and by, people with disabilities, will require a concerted effort beyond soundbytes to really invest in disability inclusion.
This means engaging with organisations of people with disabilities in places like Kenya and Zimbabwe to understand what they need and what works. CBM Ireland has been doing this with funding from Irish Aid and others and continues to learn from representative organisations of people with disabilities. We learn that being disability inclusive costs money and needs investment. It takes time. Progress doesn’t happen overnight.
CBM Ireland, an international NGO, follows the work of many Irish missionaries who have dedicated their lives to making a difference in the lives of people with disabilities in many of the most difficult countries to work in. When international development cooperation was only in its infancy, Irish congregations were pioneering. Organisations like ours build on the work of religious groups that have gone before.