On the 16th to the 17th of February 2022, the second Global Disability Summit took place. When around 800 million people are living with a disability in the Global South it is high time that a disability perspective is integrated into mainstream development cooperation and humanitarian efforts. As Sif Holst said during her presentation at the Civil Society Summit on the 15th of February, When we do a development project, it is now natural to always consider gender, but we also need to consider disability. Persons with disabilities consist of 15% of the world’s population and are often among the most vulnerable. If we do not begin to consider this group, when we work with development or humanitarian efforts, the promise to Leave No One Behind ceases to be meaningful.
It was therefore comforting attending the Global Disability Summit where 188 national governments, multilateral agencies, donors, foundations, private sector, and civil society organizations made a total of 1394 commitments to disability-inclusive development.
Especially the participants’ dedication to focus on gender equality and applying an intersectional and holistic approach in development cooperation. Because no one is “just” a person with a disability. We are women, mothers, teachers, bricklayers, and so on. And we often tend to forget that persons with disabilities face the same problem as every other woman or man – on top of issues related to their disabilities.
Albeit it was a slimmed-down online version of the summit, the cooperation and commitment of all of these actors show a momentum which we need to build on as I talked about with the Danish media Verdens Bedste Nyheder