CBM Global’s statement at COSP16

CBM statement at the 16th Conference of State Parties (COSP) to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) General Assembly on Wednesday, 14 June 2022

Leaving no one behind through the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Paris Agreement and the IASC guidelines are at the core of CBM Global Disability Inclusion. We are an international disability organization with a development and humanitarian mandate working toward an inclusive world in which all persons with disabilities enjoy their human rights and achieve their full potential.  

Working with OPDs is at the heart of our work and we are committed to shifting power to OPDs in the countries where we work in. To achieve this, we began with a listening exercise with our OPDs partners that helped shape our Global Disability Summit commitments on OPD engagement, Some examples to shift power, include  supporting the establishment of the National Association of Persons with Psychosocial Disabilities in Zimbabwe, developing a new project in Nepal addressing caste-based discrimination for persons with disabilities, also working with self-advocates in Nepal, engaging with the Association of Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities in Nigeria, supporting research with the World Federation of the Deaf on deaf women in Nigeria and working with people with albinism in Madagascar who face terrible violence in their daily lives 

CBM Global advocacy priorities include climate justice, access to health and community-based services, humanitarian action, and strengthening disability data. Our advocacy is carried out in partnership with OPDs at global, regional, national, and sub-national levels. Our data advocacy efforts are done in authentic partnership with organizations of persons with disabilities since OPDs must be included and represented in all stages of data design, collection, analysis, and use. For example, we are supporting our partners Las Pinas Persons with Disability Federation, Inc. (LPPWDFI) and Women with Disabilities Leap for Economic and Social Progress (WOWLEAP) who are leading OPD citizen-generated data collection at the local level in the Philippines.  

Linked to this, we support the recognition of citizen-generated data produced by OPDs to fill data gaps and complement official statistics, particularly in the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals and the CRPD. Also, we produce resources in partnership with OPDs and UN agencies, including the disability data advocacy toolkit and newly launched disability data workshop for OPDs. 

With respect to our work towards a climate just world, we work in countries that are affected significantly by climate change yet have contributed the least to the climate crisis. We know from OPD research, for example by the Pacific Disability Forum, that persons with disabilities are negatively impacted by the changing climate and that policies to adapt to and mitigate climate change must be disability inclusive and recognise and respond to the physical, economic and wellbeing consequences.  

Accessibility is a precondition for inclusion, and we work in partnership with OPDs on accessibility actions such as with the World Blind Union on building a cohort of OPDs who can lead on accessibility. We also work with the Stakeholder Group Persons with Disabilities and the Department for General Assembly and Conference Management on ensuring and strengthening accessibility at the UN 

In conclusion, the CRPD and its evolution over the last 16 years have seen important improvements and we must celebrate the progress. There is still, however, work to be done and OPDs need to be at the heart of this.