Attachments
Executive summary
Six years away from the deadline for the 2030 Agenda, the Disability and Development Report 2024 shows that persons with disabilities are being left behind. Progress for persons with disabilities on 30 per cent of targets of the SDGs is insufficient; on 14 per cent, the target has been missed or progress has stalled or gone into reverse. These include targets on access to financial resources, health care, water and ICT as well as on building resilience of persons with disabilities during disasters and other emergencies. A mere 5 indicators are on track, i.e., with progress consistent with achieving their respective targets for persons with disabilities by 2030 – these include remarkable progress in education laws on equal access, disaster early warnings in accessible formats, online services for persons with disabilities, government ministries accessible for persons with disabilities and monitoring of bilateral aid dedicated to disability inclusion.
Wide gaps persist between persons with and without disabilities, particularly on food insecurity, health, access to energy and ICT – with gaps above 10 percentage points – and on multidimensional poverty and employment – with gaps above 20 percentage points. For women with disabilities, indigenous persons with disabilities, persons with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities and persons with disabilities living in rural areas, the gaps are wider. Moreover, although countries have increasingly involved persons with disabilities in decision-making processes, overall, this involvement remains low.
The COVID-19 response was largely not inclusive of persons with disabilities, especially in the early stages of the pandemic, with discriminatory practices in COVID-19 treatment, lack of information in accessible formats and reduced access to COVID-19 testing (41 per cent of persons with disabilities versus 28 per cent of persons without disabilities did not have access to COVID-19 testing). Half of COVID-19 deaths occurred among persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities lost jobs and income at higher rates than others. Early in the pandemic, a third of persons with disabilities lost access to personal assistance, assistive technology or accessibility services – a trend that continued throughout the pandemic driven by inflation and disruptions in the supply chains, including a drop of 10 per cent in exports of assistive products. Persons with disabilities faced more difficulties than others accessing and affording food (52 versus 46 per cent), water delivery (31 versus 18 per cent), energy (31 versus 24 per cent), housing (28 versus 24 per cent), health care (34 versus 22 per cent), medicines (40 versus 32 per cent), masks (64 versus 50 per cent) and sanitizers (66 versus 54 per cent). One in 5 students with disabilities dropped out of school during the pandemic and 9 in 10 did not have the ICT needed to participate in remote learning. Half of workers with disabilities faced barriers working remotely, such as inaccessible online platforms. The isolation created by lockdowns increased the risk of violence, with a quarter of persons with disabilities experiencing violence at home and almost half of women with disabilities not feeling safe at home. Lockdowns disrupted data collections creating a lack of evidence to guide pandemic responses for persons with disabilities.
Not all countries introduced measures to support persons with disabilities to face these challenges.
Whereas more than 90 per cent of countries prioritized persons with disabilities in COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, only half of households with students with disabilities received financial support for the personal assistance and technology they needed for remote learning, less than half of countries targeted persons with disabilities in their COVID-19 social protection measures and only 10 per cent of countries conducted rapid emergency data collections on persons with disabilities during the pandemic.
Compared to the Disability and Development Report 2018, this time around there is much more data on persons with disabilities – data availability is at its highest level since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Despite these advancements, only 50 per cent of targets have indicators with enough data to assess progress. For 40 per cent of targets, there is only data to provide a one point in time snapshot. For 10 per cent of targets, there is not enough data for a one point in time snapshot – these include targets on extreme poverty, child mortality, health impact of pollution, early childhood development, child labour and the impact of corruption and bribery.
The way things are going, the world will not achieve the SDGs by, for and with persons with disabilities by 2030. Depending on the target, progress needs to accelerate to 2 to 65 times faster. Accelerations are particularly needed in making physical and virtual environments accessible for persons with disabilities, in adopting anti-discrimination legislation, in expanding social protection and in implementing measures to guarantee the safety and protection of all persons with disabilities during disasters and emergencies.
As the international community prepares for the Summit of the Future in September 2024, all need to step up to accelerate the SDGs and disability inclusion is part of the solution. The world needs to build on the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic to plan better for future crises. The Disability and Development Report 2024 provides a snapshot of the current situation and progress made by goal/target and identifies concrete steps that global leaders and relevant stakeholders can take to accelerate the implementation of the SDGs by, for and with persons with disabilities: