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Mali's fiftieth anniversary: accessibility to healthcare for people with disabilities. | © S. Baux / HI
The third Global Disability Summit (GDS) will be held in Berlin, Germany, on 2 and 3 April 2025. Friederike Römer, Disability-Inclusive Development and Social Policies Officer at Handicap International - Humanity & Inclusion (HI), explains the importance and the challenges of this new summit, as well as the results expected by HI.
The Global Disability Summit is an international event that brings together Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs), other civil society organizations, governments, international organisations and the private sector to advance disability inclusion and inclusive development.
It will be a key moment to promote the rights of persons with disabilities and to build on the momentum of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) and the previous disability summits to achieve meaningful and systematic inclusion of persons with disabilities in international development.
This summit has been preceded by events organised at continental level (regional pre-summits) to bring together cooperation and disability partners. The objective of these events was to prepare the themes of the GDS and find solutions to regional problems. After the African pre-summit in Nairobi on 5 September and the Middle East pre-summit in Amman on 13 and 14 November, HI and its OPD partners played an active part in the European pre-summit in Berlin on 6 December and the Latin America event in Rio de Janeiro from 9 to 11 December 2024.
16 % of the global population have a disability. They often face exclusion, stigma and discrimination because governments and service providers are not aware of the needs of persons with disabilities and the barriers they are facing. This is why it is important to raise awareness of their situation and their rights. They have equal rights and must have access to services just like everybody else.
The GDS brings visibility to disability inclusion and international cooperation. Organisations and governments are asked to make commitments to better include persons with disabilities in their work. At the end of the summit, the co-hosts will present a declaration. We can use the momentum of the commitments and the declaration to advance disability inclusion in our work, our conversations and partnerships. We can use the commitments to hold stakeholders accountable to ensure they are including persons with disabilities and OPDs in all of their programmes, policies and initiatives.
Approximately $1 billion of global Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) was allocated to disability-inclusive projects in 2018. This represented less than 0.4% of total ODA, equivalent to under $1 per person with disabilities in recipient countries.
The GDS presents an opportunity for organisations of people with disabilities and other organisations like HI to demand from the international donor community to increase funding for disability inclusive development and humanitarian work, and provide more direct support to organisations of people with disabilities.
HI is expecting a pledge from States, UN entities and donors to increase their support to inclusive actions. Commitments are not legally binding agreements, and their implementation is not very well monitored. The co-hosts have asked organisations and governments to make commitments that are specific, measurable, realistic and ambitious.
HI is preparing active participation in the summit through our own commitments to disability inclusive humanitarian and development work. We are also preparing a thematic session in the Civil Society Forum on the day before the summit, and we are partnering with other organisations to apply to organize a side-event.
HI is supporting organisations of people with disabilities representatives to participate in the summit on site in Berlin, and if successful, will support them to apply as speakers in side events and so-called fireside chats.
Persons with disabilities demand to be included in all decisions, as coined in the motto of the disability rights movement: nothing about us without us. We can only be successful in our work on disability rights if we put persons with disabilities front and centre. They are the experts of their own situation, the barriers they face and the solutions they need. They must play a central role in ensuring that their human rights are translated into concrete measures that improve their lives.
HI partners with OPDs to promote their meaningful participation and their equal access to opportunities and resources. To achieve this, HI provides small grants, capacity building (e.g. workshops and trainings on creating an advocacy action plan), partnership building and support to advocacy efforts on the local, regional, national and international level. For example, HI has a regional capacity-building programme in 15 countries in West Africa. The lead OPD partner is the West Africa Federation of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, who is in turn supporting national federations and organisations of people with disabilities.
HI is an independent and impartial aid organisation working in situations of poverty and exclusion, conflict and disaster. We work alongside people with disabilities and vulnerable populations, taking action and bearing witness in order to respond to their essential needs, improve their living conditions and promote respect for their dignity and fundamental rights.
HI is an independent and impartial aid organisation working in situations of poverty and exclusion, conflict and disaster. We work alongside people with disabilities and vulnerable populations, taking action and bearing witness in order to respond to their essential needs, improve their living conditions and promote respect for their dignity and fundamental rights.
