International Day of Persons with Disabilities

Ms. Aguilar,
Mr. Pineda,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentleman:

It is an honour to welcome you to the Palais des Nations on the occasion of the international day of persons with disabilities and to celebrate with you “A Day for All”.

This international day was established on the 3rd of December 1992, with the aim to promote greater understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights and well-being of persons with disabilities. It also seeks to increase awareness of gains to be derived from the integration of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.

The theme of this year international day is “Inclusion matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities”.

As the UN Secretary-General noted in his message on
the International Day of Persons with Disabilities:

“We mark this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities in the wake of the adoption of the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This global blueprint for action summons us to “leave no one behind”.

Yet, there is an estimated one billion people living with disabilities worldwide . As a result of the many barriers hindering the inclusion of disabled persons, one billion of our co-citizens face discrimination in their daily life.

This is also relevant for us here at the United Nations Office at Geneva. UNOG is investing great efforts to improve the accessibility of the Palais des Nations to persons with disabilities, both in terms of improvement of the physical accessibility to the building and of meeting support. UNOG is, for example, providing international sign language interpretation and video-captioning to the ‘Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ and to the mandated panels on disability of the ‘Human Rights Council’.

Accessibility for persons with disabilities has been fully integrated into the renovation project of the Palais des Nations, the Strategic Heritage Plan, which is being considered by the General Assembly in New York as we speak. Our aim is that the new building be fully compliant with the local accessibility standards.

What we do here in the Palais des Nations is also negotiating texts that will guide our future work, for example the ‘Sendai framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030’. It was adopted in Sendai, Japan, at the Third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, one of the most accessible World Conferences ever, and this accessibility went beyond the conference building. It included conference documentation and proceedings, with closed captioning, braille, international and Japanese sign interpretation.

As the UN Secretary-General said in his message on this Day:

“As we look ahead, we need to strengthen development policies and practices to ensure that accessibility is part of inclusive and sustainable development. This requires improving our knowledge of the challenges facing all persons with disabilities - including through more robust, disaggregated data - and ensuring that they are empowered to create and use opportunities.

Together with persons with disabilities, we can move our world forward by leaving no one behind.”

Since 1992, significant progress has been made, but much work still lies ahead. Let me reassure you of the full commitment of UNOG to continue engaging with persons with disabilities and supporting their efforts to reduce the many obstacles they face in their everyday life.

Let me also acknowledge that 2016 will be a key year, as we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the ‘UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’, while working on the implementation of the SDGs.

I look forward to today’s discussion and to the interview of Mr. Pablo Pineda, winner of the Silver Shell award at the 2009 San Sebastián International Film Festival, and first student with Down syndrome to obtain a university degree.

I thank you for your attention.