Persons with disabilities are largely excluded from participating in decisions that largely affect them. This barrier in social inclusion is often exacerbated by attitudinal barriers, therefore leading to the lack of access to services that suit their needs and spaces where they can participate.
Nigeria is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities presents an imperative for meaningful participation of PWDs, but progress in the implementation of the UN Convention has been too slow.
Ipas Nigeria Health Foundation works to advance the rights of persons with disability, by designing user-centred programmes that enable the participation of persons with disabilities and eliminate barriers in accessing health services. However, multiple efforts at national, regional and global levels would be needed to realize progress on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The Sustainable Development Goals remain a catalyst for addressing the gaps of social inclusion for persons with disabilities. Ensuring that the voices of PWDs are heard is therefore critical to making progress on the commitment to leave no one behind. Therefore, there is a need to review existing policies and to design measures that can effectively accelerate the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.
In the report submitted by the UN Special Rapporteur, Heba Hagrass, on the rights of persons with disabilities Ipas Nigeria in partnership with multiple stakeholders including International Disability Alliance, European Network on Independent Living and the World Federation of the Deaf identified key obstacles as well as recommendations on how to eliminate the existing barriers that limit the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities. This would reflect strong and inclusive follow-up processes are further important as discussions that will shape future international cooperation and the post-2030 Agenda are taking place in the next years.