"United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities.” Statement by Charles Abani, UN Resident Coordinator

I am honoured and delighted to join you for this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities on behalf of the United Nations Country Team in Ghana. Thank you for the invitation.

Today, we are gathered here to commemorate the International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) that falls on the 3rd of December every year to focus minds and attention on persons with disabilities and critically examine what has been done and those needing improving to make our world truly inclusive.

I must commend the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD), the Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (PRPD) implementing partners, other actors and partners for leading this IDPD event to promote and advocate for sustainable and transformative progress on disability inclusion in Ghana. This is what we stand for as the United Nations; To ensure no one is left behind.

Ladies and gentlemen:

The theme for this year’s IDPD: “united in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities” offers us the platform to take stock of existing initiatives and programmes that seek to mainstream disability inclusion in our programming and in our operations. It also offers us the opportunity to address the question of how to rescue and achieve the SDGs for persons with disabilities but equally important, doing these with persons with disabilities, and how to leverage opportunities to ensure no one is left behind, especially in the wake of increased global conflicts, economic pressures and climate catastrophes among other emerging challenges.

3. UN Secretary General’s statement and the global call of action

Mr. Chairman,

please allow me to begin my message by reading the UN Secretary General’s statement to commemorate International Disability Day:

‘’This year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities reminds us that achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires living up to the promise to leave no one behind, especially the 1.3 billion persons with disabilities worldwide. 

Today, at the halfway point to the 2030 Agenda, persons with disabilities continue facing systemic discrimination and barriers that restrict their meaningful inclusion in all areas of society.

Truly sustainable development for persons with disabilities requires a laser-like focus on their needs and rights — not only as beneficiaries, but as active contributors across social, economic and political life.

This means ensuring that persons with disabilities are at every decision-making table, in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and across countries’ efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals — from poverty eradication, to health, education and climate action.

The United Nations is leading by example through our Disability Inclusion Strategy, and by supporting Member States as they drive progress for, and with, persons with disabilities.

On this important day, I call on the world to work side-by-side with persons with disabilities to design and deliver solutions based on equal rights in every country and community.’’

4. Bringing the global call of action to Ghana

Mr. Chairman,

It is my pleasure and honour to extend the Secretary General’s global call of action to the Government and people of Ghana.

There is no need for me to highlight the challenges Ghana is facing particularly in ensuring safe space for persons with disabilities to thrive. We all know what they are.

What I want to do is to give a message of hope, that our collective efforts will bring positive impact if we do not give up. I would allude to our Ghanaian adage that “a single broom can easily break but multiple strands cannot be broken easily.’’ Together, we can achieve more for persons with disabilities and the SDGs.

As the UN Secretary General said, the task is monumental, but everyone can contribute. It is the government, the private sector, the civil society, the traditional leaders, but in reality every individual man and woman can do his or her part.

I would like therefore to encourage the Government and traditional leaders to sensitize and empower the people to appreciate the vital role each one plays, understand what they can do to contribute to the collective goal, and take action.

5. United Nations (UN) Work in Disability Inclusion

Distinguished ladies and Gentlemen,

Our new Corporation Framework (UNSDCF) provides the foundation for sustainable and transformative progress on disability inclusion through three (3) strategic pillars – inclusive economic transformation, access to quality basic services and durable peace. Across all these pillars, the UN is working to reduce inequality and promote the social, economic, and political inclusion and meaningful participation of all. The UNSDCF recognizes the importance of integrating issues of persons with disabilities, women, girls, children, and young people without and with disabilities into all of our work. Stepping outside the tradition of silos, it emphasizes the importance of the ‘horizontal’ issues (financing for the SDGs, the triple planetary crisis, digitalization, urbanization, governance, mobility, human rights and operationalizing the concept of ‘leaving no one behind’ in all of our work – whether in development or a humanitarian context. The cooperation framework also emphasizes a renewed vigor on partnerships and centralizes the constituencies we are to work with in all of our work – which will result in expanded partnerships with government and ‘beyond-instrumental’ engagements with civil society as well as the private sector, including constituencies of organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) across all these issues. This is a commitment to which we will remain resolute and unwavering.

In addition, the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy provides us the foundation for sustainable and transformative progress on disability inclusion through all pillars of the work of the UN, including peace and security, human rights and development. The meaningful participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in our work is central to the success of this Strategy which is the fundamental element of the human rights approach and part of the measures to realising the SDGs.

Additionally, through key global priorities such as the Transforming Food Systems and Education, enhancing Financing and Climate action, the UN is leading the cause to create a more inclusive, accessible, and sustainable post-COVID-19 world that recognizes the needs and opportunities for persons with disabilities.

The Ghana we want should be disability-inclusive, tackle injustice and discrimination, provide accessible infrastructure and create opportunities that increase access to technology that result in strengthened institutions and creating sustainable jobs and access to markets for persons with disabilities as well. There is the need to create market spaces and linkages in the MSMEs sector to accommodate persons with disabilities leveraging digital tools to take advantage of AfCFTA.

Furthermore, the UN family is doing so much locally. We have been active in the design and implementation of disability-inclusive development agenda to bridge gaps and ensure that the development processes are considered with persons with disability in mind and in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and other protocols. Working closely with the Government of Ghana, the UN will continue to work towards ensuring persons with disabilities have equitable access to basic services and economic empowerment just like every Ghanaian.

We also recognise that the experience of disability is not homogenous, so in our work, we prioritise the voices of representative organisations of persons with disabilities, particularly those from underrepresented groups as well as strengthen the capacity of organisations of persons with disabilities in order to amplify their agency and actions, as active citizens.

At this juncture, permit me to highlight another critical intervention in this area:

6. Advancing the CRPD

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Advancing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) requires concerted efforts from various stakeholders to ensure the full implementation and realisation of the rights of persons with disabilities. The core areas of the CRPD reflect the fundamental principles and rights that underpin human rights and guide efforts towards the empowerment, inclusion, and full enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities. It is based on these principles that the PRPD programme have brought together relevant stakeholders (the United Nations, government, OPDs, Private Sector and civil societies) to support the process to establish the preconditions for disability inclusion that enables the full implementation of the CRPD.

The UN Country Team is excited to support the re-enactment of the Act 715, (Persons with Disabilities Act) through the PRPD project using the participatory approach of law reforms as required by the CRPD. It is our hope that by the end of 2024, the Act 715 and its accompanying legislative instrument addressing the preconditions for disability inclusion, would have been reviewed to be in line with the CRPD standards, and passed.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our years of experience of implementing programmes and advocacy for legislation and human rights instruments teach us that, enacting or re-enacting enabling legislations alone nor domesticating international treaties such as the CRPD in themselves will not make a tangible change in the life of persons with disabilities. What needs to happen, as you know, is for the government to implement provisions in those laws at the national and subnational levels. Also important is to build and strengthen the capacity of OPDs who are the rights holders to drive the change process and integrate disability in all facets of the development agenda.

Also recognising that neither the UN nor government on our own can rescue and achieve the SDGs for persons with disabilities but we need to do these inclusive of persons with disabilities, and to ensure sustainability of all our initiatives, through the PRPD project, we are strengthening, and developing the capacities of OPDs and disability-focused stakeholders to coordinate, monitor, account, and evaluate disability programming within and outside of government.

I am therefore happy to report that, the GFD through the PRPD project has conducted various trainings and organised different capacity development trainings for its leaders, Regional leaders of their member organisations, women and girls with disabilities including underrepresented groups, and state agencies to enhance their understanding of the rights of persons with disabilities and disability inclusion employing rights-based approaches. These initiatives have directly benefited 200 government officials, persons with disabilities and civil society actors at both national and regional levels with over 10,000 people reached through the various media activities carried-out. Additionally, another training for Parliamentary champions will be underway soon to equip the Parliamentary Champions with knowledge, skills, and tools to effectively facilitate advocacy for disability rights, and consciously promote disability inclusion in their respective committee’s’ work, in national policies, strategies and plans in line with UNCRPD and SDGs.

Concluding Remarks – Call to action

Ladies and gentlemen, the United Nations is committed to disability inclusion and with our joined up and integrated approach, we are working to remove barriers to inclusion and advance the rights of persons with disabilities; and as I indicated at the beginning of my speech, the UNCT works with Government to mainstream disability and put in place systems that will ensure inclusion rather than exclusion of persons with disabilities at all levels. To this end, recognising that comments from the Attorney General has been received and integrated into the Re-enacted Act, we urge Government and Parliament to expedite actions to pass the Re-Enacted Act of the Act 715 and any associated instrument. The passage of this Act will positively impact the lives of the over 2,098,138 Ghanaians with functional difficulties.

We can only achieve disability inclusion when we are able to develop and implement a consistent and systematic approach in all areas of our work.  Together, we must forge ahead in acting on disability inclusion. “The commitment to realizing the rights of persons with disabilities is not only a matter of justice; it is an investment…”, an investment that will go a long way in safeguarding the future for the next generation. Therefore, let us embrace a whole-of-society approach and forge strong partnerships and leverage our collective expertise and resources to generate meaningful impact, drive systemic change, and truly leave no one behind.

Thank you!