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People with disabilities can play key role in sustainable development: UN

Xinhua, December 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

The United Nations on Thursday called for empowerment of people with disabilities, saying that they can play a key role in promoting sustainable development.

On the International Day of Persons with Disabilities which falls on Dec. 3, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said as the world sets out to implement sustainable development agenda, persons with disabilities must be recognized as "effective agents of change whose contributions bring enormous benefit."

This requires improving our knowledge of challenges facing all persons with disabilities, including through more robust, disaggregated data, and ensuring that they are empowered to create and use opportunities, said Ban.

This year in Septemeber, world leaders adopted the 2030 sustainable development agenda to guide the international development and cooperation over the next 15 years, vowing to "leave no one behind."

Echoing with the ambitious commitment, the United Nations designated the theme for the world day in 2015 as "inclusion matters: access and empowerment for people of all abilities."

Currently, the world population is over 7 billion people. More than one billion people, approximately 15 percent of the world's population, live with some form of disability. 80 percent of them live in developing countries.

The International Day of Persons with Disabilities is marked worldwide annually on Dec. 3 to promote awareness and mobilize support for critical issues pertaining to the inclusion of persons with disabilities in society and development. Endit