DI signs the Global Disability Summit’s Charter for Change

Development Initiatives (DI) has joined more than three hundred organisations worldwide in calling for greater progress towards ensuring the rights, freedoms, dignity and inclusion of all persons with disabilities.

As a signatory to the Charter for Change, DI commits to ten specific goals – including the collection and use of better data to characterise the challenges faced by people with disabilities, the prioritisation of the people being left furthest behind, and the elimination of stigma and discrimination against them.

The UK’s Department for International Development, the Government of Kenya and the International Disability Alliance have spearheaded the charter, and DI welcomes the leading role they have taken in addressing this important issue.

The charter was launched yesterday as part of the Global Disability Summit in London, and current signatories include organisations ranging from national governments and multilateral organisations to civil society organisations and the private sector.

DI’s Executive Director Harpinder Collacott said: “The Global Disability Summit was an important step in raising the profile of some of the most vulnerable people globally, who often remain invisible in the data – people living with disabilities. To ensure we meet the commitments of the Sustainable Development Goals we firstly need to make visible those who are most vulnerable to being left behind, to ensure they can and are included in progress. The Global Goals are a universal agenda and the UK Government needs to prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable people at home as well as abroad if it is to live up to its promise to leave no one behind.”