International Disability Alliance and the International Disability and Development Consortium

¬¬Statement made by Nick Corby (Leonard Cheshire Disability) at the interactive dialogue in Round 4 of the intergovernmental negotiations, April 23 2015.

Mr Co-Facilitator

I am here today to speak on behalf of the International Disability Alliance and the International Disability and Development Consortium.

Like others in this room, we recognize that the SDGs represent a once in a generation opportunity to reset the compass. We welcome the steps taken to date to include all persons with disabilities and older persons, youth and children, and indigenous persons in the post-2015 development agenda. We strongly urge Member States to retain and strengthen further the existing references to disability in the SDG framework and the Addis Ababa Accord.

Today, however, I want to focus on how we can ensure the post-2015 development agenda truly transforms the lives of all persons with disabilities.

To ensure that we are not here simply to agree meaningless words on a page, but to assure effective and tangible change for persons with disabilities we have six recommendations.

Focussing first on the financial means of implementation, we recommend:

• Developing a clear financing framework that commits to mobilising sufficient public and private resources to meet the rights of persons with disabilities and to leave no-one behind.

• Second, securing progressive increases in domestic and international resources directed to disability support services, including social protection schemes aimed at the full inclusion of persons with disabilities.

• And third, ensuring that ‘accessibility’, as defined by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, is a key criterion in the mobilization of domestic and international resources, to for example technology.

We must not overlook the non-financial means of implementation. We recommend:
• Using the Addis Ababa Accord to establish universal safeguards to prevent development interventions or initiatives unwittingly creating or perpetuating some of the barriers to persons with disabilities.

• Also, requiring all plans, development strategies and/or mechanisms established to help implement the post-2015 development agenda to complement and support the national implementation and reporting requirements of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

• And finally, setting indicators that incentivise disability-inclusive development, disaggregate the impact of the SDGs on persons with disabilities, and disaggregate the allocation of funding by disability status (and by age, sex etc).

Thank you for your time.