Outcome document of the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the realization of the
Millennium Development Goals and other internationally agreed development goals for persons
with disabilities: the way forward, a disability-inclusive development agenda towards 2015 and beyond
A/RES/68/3
3.
We are concerned that this commitment has yet to be fully translated into the
inclusion of disability in internationally agreed development goals, including the
Millennium Development Goals, and, as 2015 approaches, strongly reiterate our
determination to ensure the timely realization of the Millennium Development
Goals and other internationally agreed development goals for persons with
disabilities, who make up an estimated 15 per cent of the world’s population, or
1 billion people, of whom an estimated 80 per cent live in developing countries. In
this regard, we stress the importance of ensuring accessibility for and inclusion of
persons with disabilities in all aspects of development and of giving due
consideration to all persons with disabilities in the emerging post-2015 United
Nations development agenda.
II.
Realizing the development goals for persons with disabilities towards 2015
and beyond
4.
We underline the need for urgent action by all relevant stakeholders towards
the adoption and implementation of more ambitious disability-inclusive national
development strategies and efforts with disability-targeted actions, backed by
increased international cooperation and support, and resolve to undertake the
following commitments leading to 2015 and beyond:
(a) Achieve the full application and implementation of the international
normative framework on disability and development by encouraging the ratification
and implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2
and by considering the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention, 3 as
both human rights and development instruments;
(b) Ensure that all development policies, including those regarding poverty
eradication, social inclusion, full and productive employment and decent work, and
access to basic social services, and their decision-making processes take into
account the needs of and benefit all persons with disabilities, including women,
children, youth, indigenous peoples and older persons, who can be subject to
violence and multiple or aggravated forms of discrimination;
(c) Develop specific plans, including, when necessary, the enactment or
amendment and enforcement of national legislation, the harmonization of national
legislative, policy and institutional structures and the adoption and implementation
of national plans relevant to the Millennium Development Goals and other
internationally agreed development goals to advance the inclusion of persons with
disabilities;
(d) Recognize the right to education on the basis of equal opportunity and
non-discrimination by making primary education accessible, free and compulsory,
and available to all children with disabilities on an equal basis with others, ensuring
that all children have equal opportunity for access to an inclusive education system
of good quality and making early and secondary education generally available and
accessible to all, in particular to children with disabilities from low-income
families;
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2
3
2/5
United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 2515, No. 44910.
Ibid., vol. 2518, No. 44910.