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On December 1st, the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) 2017 was marked at the UN Headquarters in New York under the theme: Transformation towards sustainable and resilient society for all. Governments, persons with disabilities and their representative organizations, private sector and academic institutions gathered together to promote the rights of persons with disabilities and share best practice for building accessible, resilient and sustainable societies.
DSPD/DESA director Ms. Daniela Bas opened the session and highlighted the importance of the engagement of persons with disabilities. “Persons with disabilities with their unique experience and expertise can make important contributions to the design, development and implementation of innovative solutions”, she said, and added that “dignity has no name; dignity has no disabilities. It is about all people.”
UN General Assembly President Miroslav Lajčák affirmed the landmark achievements made for protecting the right of persons with disabilities but also pointed out "much more need to be done" as persons with disabilities are often affected disproportionately by poverty, discrimination and exclusion. He urged policy makers to work closely with specialists to devise innovative public policies that draw upon advances in technology to ensure inclusion and accessibility for all.
Disability is recognized as a cross-cutting issue in the 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda, which sets a new global standard for sustainable urban development, and the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction.
Mr. Hiroshi Kawamura, specialist on disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction, shared on-side research and skills for survival at extreme incidents which had been proved to be effective in many disasters. He stressed “accessible and easy to understand information for knowledge and skills” as the key elements for inclusion societies.
Acknowledging the needs to address social problems in the process of urban development, representatives of different social groups, including the youth, the older persons, persons with disabilities and indigenous peoples, participated actively in sharing knowledge and experience in building accessible societies.
They called for policy makers working with industry specialists to “devise innovative public policies that draw upon advances in technology, infrastructure, services and products”, and to provide training and education that could “equip them with demanded professional skills” and therefore reduce poverty levels of the communities.
Airbnb and Hilton, presented their initiatives offering the youth and the persons with disabilities employment opportunities. They underlined accessible tourism as “both a social good imperative, and an exceptional business opportunity”.
The dialogues proved opportunity to forge fruitful partnerships between the public and private sectors and mobilize the different stakeholders to work together to effectively implemented SDGs and Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) for ensuring social inclusion and equal participation.
Watch the full discussions here.
Source: UNSDN