DESA USG Hongbo stresses need to build better future for all as COSP7 open session | Division for Inclusive Social Development (DISD)

As the world discussed the post-2015 landscape, it was vital that inclusive sustainable development built a better future for all people, especially for those living with disabilities, said Under-Secretary-General Wu Hongbo, as the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities opened its seventh session today.

“We need to make sure the new development framework would not leave the 1 billion persons with disabilities behind,” said the Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, who spoke on behalf of the Secretary-General.

Opening the three-day meeting, Conference President Macharia Kamau (Kenya) highlighted key achievements, among them that 147 States had ratified the Convention and that 158 States were signatories. Such triumphs were testament to the inclusion of the rights of persons with disabilities, as well as the General Assembly’s high-level meeting on disabilities last September which determined that addressing disabilities was at the core of development.

Now all stakeholders must address the gaps between the goals and the situation on the ground, where access to schools, health care, jobs and public services was sometimes uneven, he said. Efforts were needed to ensure the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the post-2015 development goals, to implement the Convention and to address monitoring and evaluation systems that helped to identify persons with disabilities. “It was now time for all of us to roll up our sleeves and work harder on these issues,” he said.

Maria Soledad, Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, said the exercise of all rights, particularly equal recognition of persons before the law, was imperative so people could exercise full autonomy and to make their own decisions on their lives.

Many speakers endorsed the Secretary-General’s statement that persons with disabilities be included in the post-2015 development agenda.

In other business, the Conference adopted its agenda, its organization of work and elected, by two rounds of secret balloting, members of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to replace the nine members whose terms were due to expire 31 December 2014. The terms of the newly elected members would begin on 1 January 2015 and end on 31 December 2018.

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