Together for inclusion

“I am proud that Norway will show international leadership to secure the same right to development for people with disabilities as for everybody else. In Oslo, we look forward to taking stock of the current situation, and look at what we are actually doing to achieve inclusive development. I hope to see more people become actors of change,” said Norway’s minister of international development, Dag- Inge Ulstein.

In July 2018, the UK Department for International Development, alongside the Government of Kenya and the International Disability Alliance, organised the first ever Global Disability Summit in London. The Summit brought together global leaders to galvanise the global effort to address disability inclusion in the poorest countries in the world, and act as the start point for major change on this neglected issue.

The upcoming Global Disability Summit in Oslo in 2022 will take stock of progress made since London in 2018, and set the agenda for future work on inclusive development, including people with disabilities in the process.

“The International Disability Alliance is yet again proud to be co-hosting a summit to advance the disability inclusive development,” said Ana Lucia Arellano, President of the International Disability Alliance. “The first Summit in London started a new momentum, and we are already seeing great strides. IDA commits to ensuring the active and meaningful engagement of persons with disabilities across the entire Summit”.

The summit will bring together developing countries, donors, multilateral agencies, private sector, organisations of persons with disabilities and NGOs. Organizations of persons with disabilities will be the key partners in the summit. On the day prior to the summit, organisations of persons with disabilities and civil society organizations will organize a preparatory meeting, facilitated by the Atlas Alliance and IDA.

“Although 2022 seems far away I hope that the process leading up to the summit will be as inclusive and honest as possible. We need to understand what barriers people living with disabilities face and what we can do to remove hindrances and ensure real inclusion,” Ulstein said.