3 December 2015: During the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, participants at a UN event considered the theme ‘Inclusion matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities,’ and discussed disability data, statistics and indicators in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In the opening session, on 3 December 2015, in New York, US, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said leaders agreed in the 2030 Agenda that no one must be left behind, and the UN Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) sent a clear message that persons with disabilities are an essential resource for the implementation of the Sendai Framework for DRR 2015-2030. Ban called for ensuring that accessibility is part of inclusive and sustainable development.

At a panel discussion co-sponsored by Australia, UK and ADD International on ‘Operationalizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Disability data, statistics and indicators, monitoring and evaluation for inclusive development,’ participants highlighted the importance of: reliable, robust, evidence based, and accessible and affordable data; high quality data that provide the “right information on the right thing at the right time;” and strengthening capacity for data related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a special attention to data on poor countries. Several participants also called for SDG indicators that are disaggregated for disability.

Caitlin Wilson, Permanent Mission of Australia, noted that many tools to collect and analyze disability data already exist, but efforts are needed to encourage their use. Margaret Mbogoni, UN Statistics Division, observed a lack of comparability among countries regarding how disability is defined and measured, and reported that the UN seeks to develop international guidelines for the measurement of disability.

Linda Hooper, UNSD, said the SDGs include six targets referring to persons with disabilities. Hooper also announced an open consultation on the global indicators being developed by the Inter-agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs), to take place from 9-15 December 2015, with a focus on the ‘gray’-coded indicators (the indicators on which the IAEG does not yet have consensus). She added that the IAEG-SDGs follows paragraph 74g of the 2030 Agenda, which calls for follow-up and review processes at all levels to be “rigorous and based on evidence, informed by country-led evaluations and data which is high-quality, accessible, timely, reliable and disaggregated by income, sex, age, race, ethnicity, migration status, disability and geographic location and other characteristics relevant in national contexts.”

Derrick Cogburn, Institute on Disability and Public Policy for the ASEAN Region, outlined the usefulness of technology and “big data” for data collection, noting that the 2030 Agenda recognizes information and communications technology (ICT) as a “critical component” of sustainable development and the SDGs. He added that ICT also can help persons with disabilities participate in meetings remotely, increasing inclusiveness.

The UN’s observance of the International Day also included sessions on ‘Call for action’ and ‘Commitment to action,’ and panel discussions on ‘Accessible new urban agenda and inclusion of persons with disabilities’ and ‘Invisible disabilities.’ [UN Secretary-General Remarks] [Event Website] [IAEG-SDGs Consultation] [IISD RS Sources]