CBM welcomes World Report on Disability

10 Jun 2011

Yasmina is five years old. She is part of a CBR (Community Based Rehabilitation) programme run by CBM partner PRAHN in Niger, and is in grade one, with her friends, at her local primary school. Yasmina wants to be a teacher when she grows up. - Copyright CBM

CBM Ireland welcomes the first ever World Report on Disability, launched at the United Nations in New York on 9 June 2011.

The report presents evidence that previous figures underestimated global prevalence of disability - it says that one billion people experience disability worldwide. It regularly quotes persons with disabilities, emphasising the need for their voices to be heard, and its conclusions, especially regarding the world's poorest countries, strongly reinforce the need for - and worth of - CBM's work.

An historic occasion, at a critical time

On June 9th the World Health Organisation, together with the World Bank, launched the first ever World Report on Disability (WRD).
This is a historic occasion. The report will focus global attention on persons with disabilities all over the world, and it concentrates on the situation of persons with disabilities in the poorest communities.

It also comes at a critical time; 150 countries have now signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). These, and other governments, are in the process of planning the implementation of this convention, and the WRD will help with this; it provides strong evidence of the need to make rapid progress to equalise rights and opportunities for persons with disabilities.

Mary Keogh, Trustee of CBM, has written a summary blog on the findings of the report.