Wednesday, December 3 is International Day for Persons with Disabilities. The United Nations Theme for 2025 is Fostering Disability Inclusive Societies for Advancing Social Progress.
Across all regions, persons with disabilities and their households face challenges and barriers in the attainment of social development objectives:
- They are more likely to live in poverty.
- They continue to face discrimination in employment, receiving lower wages and being overrepresented in the informal sector.
- Social protection systems are uneven in coverage and inadequate when considering extra disability-related costs, frequently excluding persons with disabilities in the informal sector; and,
- Many persons with disabilities’ experiences within care and support systems continue to be marked by the denial of their dignity, autonomy, and agency.
The three core themes of social development, i.e. poverty eradication; promotion of full and productive employment and decent work for all; and social integration, are interrelated, mutually reinforcing and require an enabling environment so as to be achieved simultaneously. The inclusion of persons with disabilities as both agents and beneficiaries of social development is indispensable. Disability inclusion in all aspects of social, economic, cultural and political life is therefore an imperative.
The theme of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2025, “Fostering disability inclusive societies for advancing social progress”, builds on the reaffirmed commitment of world leaders gathered at the Second World Summit for Social Development to build a more just, inclusive, equitable and sustainable world and their understanding that advancing progress on social development depends on, and indeed necessitates, the inclusion of all segments of society.
The United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy (UNDIS)
When launching the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy in June 2019, the Secretary-General stated that the United Nations should lead by example and raise the Organization’s standards and performance on disability inclusion—across all pillars of work, from headquarters to the field.
The United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy provides the foundation for sustainable and transformative progress on disability inclusion through all pillars of the work of the United Nations. Through the Strategy, the United Nations system reaffirms that the full and complete realization of the human rights of all persons with disabilities is an inalienable, integral, and indivisible part of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
In 2025, the Secretary-General submitted his sixth report on disability inclusion in the UN system. Building on six years of implementation, this year’s system-wide report reflects on the progress made to advance disability inclusion between 2019 to 2024, celebrates key achievements, and outlines priorities for accelerating system-wide change. The recommendations lay out the Secretary-General’s vision for the future of UNDIS, setting a higher standard and inspiring transformative, system-wide progress on disability inclusion. (Taken from the United Nations)
Did you know?
- An estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. This represents 16% of the world’s population, or 1 in 6 of us.
- Some persons with disabilities die up to 20 years earlier than those without disabilities.
- Persons with disabilities have twice the risk of developing conditions such as depression, asthma, diabetes, stroke, obesity, or poor oral health.
- Health inequities arise from unfair conditions faced by persons with disabilities, including stigma, discrimination, poverty, exclusion from education and employment, and barriers faced in the health system itself.
Source: World Health Organization Factsheet
See video link below of Nyle Di Marco – NY Times author, producer, advocate, and actor, discussing Disabilities & Human Rights | Sustainable Development Goals | United Nations. Moderator: Ilze Brands Kehris, Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, UN OHCHR, September 18, 2023, 10:36 minutes.