Mr. Vardakastanis spoke to UN Member States of the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during the morning meeting of the Group’s eighth session, stating the importance of mainstreaming the rights of persons with disabilities across the sustainable development agenda. The theme of the session was “Promoting equality, including social equity, gender equality and women’s empowerment”. “The Sustainable Development Goals must be based on a human rights framework incorporating non-discrimination and equality, in compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD)”, Mr. Vardakastanis said.
OWG Member States, including co-chair Hungary, the Republic of Korea, Israel, Switzerland, Nicaragua, Brazil, Egypt, Japan, Poland, Cuba and Palau voiced their support for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the SDGs. In particular, the Republic of Korea emphasised the importance of recognising disability as a cross-cutting issue in the post-2015 process, while the United States and Israel supported the inclusion of disability status in disaggregated data as a priority area for the OWG to address.
In the afternoon, IDA, in cooperation with the
International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC), the Permanent
Mission of Greece to the UN, and the European Union Delegation to the UN held a
panel discussion on the inclusion of persons with disabilities in the
sustainable development agenda.