The Intersection of Disability and Sustainable Development
At the end of September, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had its annual meeting at the UN in New York, in which all 193 Member States of the United Nations convened to work together on matters of international law and peace and security.
The UNGA is the central policymaking arm of the United Nations and, according to the UN’s own description, the General Assembly “plays a significant role in the process of standard-setting and the codification of international law.” As has been the case for the past four years, High-Level Thematic meetings at the 2018 UNGA focused on the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: an international development agenda composed of 17 interconnected global aspirations designed to achieve a better and more sustainable future for everyone. This is an ambitious and universal call to action explicitly stating that the future is ours to protect and that we must leave no one behind in the process, and implicitly stating that perhaps neither of these ideas were thoroughly thought through before. Of the 17 goals that comprise the collective SDGs — which include such things as the eradication of poverty, universal access to education, decent work and economic growth reduced inequalities, and climate action — nearly half have a unique intersection with people with disabilities, such that the achievement of these goals require additional thinking for this population. These aspirational goals can be achieved for everyone, in accordance to the vision of the agenda, but if we plan to include people with disabilities, it will be imperative to think more creatively, work more comprehensively, and in the end, act more humanely.
Since its broad implementation following World War II, international development refers to the coordination of resources, policies, and institutions to alleviate poverty and improve living conditions in previously colonized countries. Since the 1940s, however, global thinking about global problems has become more globally-oriented, with the realization that the true alleviation of human suffering would require the international community addressing worldwide problems and helping to meet the needs of all people. Yet, according to a report issued by the World Bank, disability was a neglected issue among international development funders prior to the 21st century, and it was often the case that people with disabilities were considered social impediments to the very development that countries were attempting to achieve. The practical and attitudinal repercussions of this development approach have caused significant lapses in opportunity for people with disabilities, who comprise about 15 percent of the world population.
The effects of this oversight are immense and quite devastating: People with disabilities have, in many ways, been excluded from much of the social advancement that has been brought about by development efforts. For instance, as UNESCO has stated, of the more than 1 billion people around the world who experience disability, nearly 186 million children of primary school age who live with disability have not completed primary school education. This is despite Article 26 of UN Declaration of Human Rights which states, “everyone has the right to education.” People who do not receive an education are the very same people who ultimately do not become employed, and this is quite evidently the case for people with disabilities. The United Nations and the International Labor Organization have suggested that most people rely on earnings from work as their primary source of income and decent work is critical for the development process, specifically the eradication of poverty. Yet, according to the World Report on Disability in 2017, the employment rate for people with disabilities falls far below those rates for nondisabled individuals. The World Health Survey data on 51 countries around the world produced an employment rate of 52.8 percent for men with disability and only 19.6 percent for women with disability, compared to 64.9 percent and 29.9 percent for their nondisabled counterparts, respectively.
These, taken together, paint a very bleak picture for the well-being of people with disabilities around the world, and this bleakness is made manifest in the likelihood of poverty that people with disabilities face. It is, in fact, the case that one cannot speak comprehensively about poverty without talking about disability — there is a cyclical and self-perpetuating relationship between disability and poverty, in which disability is a risk factor for poverty and, in turn, poverty is a risk factor for disability. People with disabilities are the poorest of the poor, but poverty exceeds simply a lack of access to money — it implies a lack of access to everything, including wealth, opportunity, participation, and freedom. This is not an overstatement nor any mischaracterization of the suffering that people with disabilities often experience, suffering that has far too long been far too easy to ignore. It is true that children with disabilities are left to languish in institutions where there is little hope for care or exit. It is true that adults with disabilities can be chained to the walls of their homes or kept in conditions of forced slavery. And it is true that many people with disabilities are denied identities or equality before the law, such that they have no entity from which to claim their fundamental human rights. These are the true conditions that a denial of development has generated for people disabilities. These are the true conditions that must be addressed.
These circumstances are symptoms of a larger, historically encoded problem. Since international development initiatives have existed, they have often been to the benefit of productivity and to the detriment of those thought unable to produce. This structure inadvertently has created a depiction of disability that has been notoriously resistant to erosion — a depiction that people with disabilities are less capable and, as a result, less valued as human beings. This is a denial of dignity and perpetuation of prejudice that must be addressed in ongoing humanitarian efforts like the SDGs.
This brings us to the global action on the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability and social justice are two sides of the same coin: It is impossible to have a sustainable future without also ensuring sustainability applies to all. Efforts made by the ILO, the WHO, and the UN to include disability into an overall vision for the future must be matched with policy efforts to do the same. There is no uniform policy approach that can easily be implemented into all policymaking environments to address the significant disparities faced by people with disabilities, nor should there be, depending on a nation’s infrastructure, resources, and policy environment. But, there are ways to begin this process — ways to bring people with disabilities from objects of shame to subjects worthy of our care.
Until now, there has not been a universally accepted tool to determine the number of people disabilities around the world. The Washington Group developed what is thought to be the most comprehensive and easily implementable survey, the Washington Group on Disability Statistics Short Set of Questions (WGSS) which involves only 6 questions and takes less than 2 minutes to administer, but can bring to light important information about quality of life for these people. The WGSS is strongly supported and critical for effective development efforts but has yet to be adopted internationally. With the 2020 census on the horizon, now is the opportunity to do it. Now is our time. This is our time to do development right and to lift everyone out of conditions of suffering.
Brooke Ellison is an Associate Professor of medical ethics and policy at Stony Brook University. She is a Political Partner with Truman National Security Project. She is also a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Views expressed are her own.
