Global Disability Summit 2022 – Where does Ireland stand?

 

Global Disability Summit 2022

International Disability Alliance (IDA), the Government of Norway, and the Government of Ghana are hosting the second Global Disability Summit (GDS22) on the 16th and 17th of February 2022. The summit will bring together governments, private sector, civil society and others to mobilise efforts for the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and to ensure no one is left behind in development and humanitarian efforts. It will also place an emphasis on the efforts that are needed to build back better due to the impact of COVID-19 and the resulting inequalities faced by persons with disabilities around the world. 

Organisations of people with disabilities (OPDs) will be at the heart of the summit. Governments and their development partners need their commitments continued and enhanced to include the largest minority segment of the human population – who are routinely forgotten in development and humanitarian actions. Concrete steps needed to ensure equal participation of OPDs in decision making, policy development and programme implementation for a change that is sustainable and a planet that is inclusive.  

CBM Global, of which CBM Ireland is a member have pledged that the organisation will continue to play its enhanced role working alongside the OPDs in both development and humanitarian contexts, empower OPDs, especially organisations of women with disabilities, and address intersectional discrimination, promote disability as human diversity and facilitate a paradigm shift. The salient points of our GDS22 key commitments include:    

Meaningful engagement of Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs)  

  • People with disabilities are not a homogenous group. CBM Global with our OPD partners will promote diversity, strengthen the involvement of people from diverse backgrounds and impairments, including under-represented groups facing intersectional discrimination. 

  • We will increase the levels of funding flowing to OPD partners, including supporting plans that best suits their priorities and requirements.  

  • We will promote innovations to enhance greater outreach and remove barriers in partnerships with OPDs.      

  • We will advocate to donors for flexible and longer-term funding to OPDs that facilitates organisational strengthening. 

  • We will ensure that OPDs actively shape and contribute to the development and monitoring of CBM Global country strategies.  

  • We will continue to challenge negative perceptions of persons with disabilities and will model and promote OPDs in locally led inclusive development and humanitarian action. 

  • We will invest in strengthening the capacity of the disability movement to influence mainstream agencies through technical advisory roles.  

Situations of Conflict and Crisis, Including a focus on Climate Change  

  • We will strengthen disability inclusion, including women and under-represented groups in the Humanitarian Programme Cycle.

  • We will establish and support intersectoral disability working groups in humanitarian coordination and invest in building the capacity of staff and partners to implement a rights-based approach to disability inclusion. 

  • We will establish meaningful operational and strategic partnership with OPDs.  

  • We commit to support the provision of accessible platforms for OPDs to participate and influence climate decisions at all levels.  

  • We will take measures to ensure that Gender Based Violence risk mitigation and response are inclusive of and accessible to women and girls, as well as men and boys, with disabilities.  

Inclusive Health  

  • We will advocate for the repeal of discriminatory laws and support OPDs’ voice in the process of such reform.   

  • We will promote inclusion and tackle discrimination in the health sector. 

  • We will engage with service providers to promote a paradigm shift in services, an end to institutionalisation and coercion and a holistic, rights-based and recovery-orientated approach to much-needed reform. 

  • We will continue to advocate for universal use of inclusive approaches to health components of preparedness and response in the sector.

  • We commit to include disability data to help guide the development of inclusive national eye health plans. 

  • We will engage with OPDs as central actors in all our health work - as anti-stigma campaigners, as trainers and as the main actors in our advocacy work. 

Ireland’s representation at the first GDS in London in 2018 encouraged the sector. We are optimistic that the Irish Government will represent at the second summit as well and demonstrate a leadership role, share their achievements to achieve its own goals for international cooperation and also to inspire their global counterparts to promote an inclusive planet – together.  

 
 
 
Mahbub Kabirsummit