Mainstream international development must place people with disabilities at a higher priority in order to help secure bright futures for the likes of eight-year-old Babul.

Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a global initiative to combat extreme poverty across the world. The aim of the MDGs is to make sure that human development reaches everyone, everywhere. There are eight goals that all 193 United Nations member states have agreed to achieve by the year 2015.

 

These are:

1.eradicating extreme poverty and hunger,

2.achieving universal primary education,

3.promoting gender equality and empowering women,

4.reducing child mortality rates,

5.improving maternal health,

6.combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases,

7.ensuring environmental sustainability, and

8.developing a global partnership for development. 

 

However disability is not mentioned in any of the eight MDGs or in the targets set out to achieve these Goals. The inclusion of people with disabilities is a significant gap, and one that will seriously undermine efforts to achieve the MDGs. To ensure that the MDGs reach disabled people, Sightsavers believes that government and development partners should sign and implement the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD). We also believe that people with disabilities and disabled people's organisations (DPOs) should

 

 

1. Include disabled people in international development:
• Disabled people account for 1 in 5 of the world's poorest.
• Mortality for disabled children is as high as 80%.
• Disabled women are multiply disadvantaged, experiencing exclusion on account of both their gender and their disability, and are particularly vulnerable to abuse.

However disability is not mentioned in any of the eight MDGs or in the targets set out to achieve these Goals. The inclusion of people with disabilities is a significant gap, and one that will seriously undermine efforts to achieve the MDGs. To ensure that the MDGs reach disabled people, Sightsavers believes that government and development partners should sign and implement the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD). We also believe that people with disabilities and disabled people's organisations (DPOs) should be included in planning and implementing development policies and programmes at international and national
levels.

2. Include all children in quality primary and secondary education:

It is estimated that a third of the 72 million children currently out of school are disabled and that 90% of disabled children in developing countries do not go to school. Making education more responsive to the needs of disabled children is now one of the most pressing concerns if universal primary education by 2015 is to be
achieved. Sightsavers believes that governments and development partners should tackle the barriers faced by disabled children and ensure that education systems promote accessibility, affordability and an inclusive learning environment.

3. Include the neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in the MDGs:

NTDs such as trachoma and river blindness, are a group of diseases with extremely high prevalence in developing countries affecting 1.4 billion people. They are a critical reason why some of the world's poorest people cannot escape poverty, particularly in rural communities across Africa. However, the MDG targets for health specifically focus on HIV/AIDS and Malaria and only 0.6% of development assistance for health is allocated to NTDs. Sightsavers has been advocating with governments to ensure that NTDs are included in
the MDG health targets and to encourage support for the roll out of sustainable strategies for control and/or elimination of most of these diseases.

related info

 

• Word & PDF Docs
• Dochas position paper on disability & the MDGs
• Sightsavers' MDGs policy briefing