Financing Disability Inclusion at Scale: Advancing Domestic Resource Mobilization and International Cooperation in the CRPD's Next Decade (COSP19 Side Event)

Excellency, colleagues, representatives from the OPD movement, friends, welcome to the Cos side event.
Financing disability inclusion at scale.
Focused on mobilizing domestic resources as well as international financing in the next decade of the CRPD.
My name is Gopal Mitra, and I'm the global lead on disability and development at UNICEF.
It's my pleasure to welcome you all to conference room 12 for this event.
And let me also acknowledge those who have joined via UN WebTV.
We have sign language and closed captioning and we have a very eminent lineup of speakers today.
We all have noted that it has been 20 years of the ratification of the adoption of the CRPD, and much progress has been made and several events during this week have highlighted the progress.
Many governments have updated their laws, legislations, enacted new ones.
We have seen strengthening of national coordination mechanisms, programs on disability inclusion, We have seen more visibility on disability inclusion across health, education, social protection, assistive technology, and across sectors.
The key question now is that is financing keeping pace? Of course, we have seen that many governments have expanded domestic financing.
International cooperation around this area has grown, but it is not yet enough to meet the political commitments, the legal obligations, and to ensure the CRPD actually can be implemented to change the realities of the lives of persons with disabilities on the ground.
The starting level has been low, but opportunities exist.
Today, this event will explore how governments, UN agencies, organizations of persons with disabilities, other financing partners can come together and expand as well as align better the financing of disability inclusion at scale, including through the Ammann Berlin Declaration.
We have four opening speakers today, followed by a panel discussion which will include four speakers and a closing by the Global Disability Fund.
To start with, it's my pleasure to give the floor to His Excellency, Ko Ki, ambassador and permanent representative of the Kingdom of Cambodia to the UN.
The floor is yours, please.
Thank you, Chair.
Ministers, members the panelists, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
It is a great pleasure for me to join you today to discuss this importance of advancing the right and inclusion of persons with disabilities through inclusive policies, accessible services, and sustainable development partnership.
The convention of the rights of persons with disability has transformed our understanding of disability from a welfare and charity perspective to a human right based approach that recognize persons with disabilities as equal right holders and active contributors to societies.
As we approach 20th anniversaries of the conventions, we are reminded that our effort must focus not only on protecting rights, but also on expanding opportunities for meaningful participations, economic empowerment, and social inclusion.
In Cambodia, under the leadership of our current Prime Minister, Sam Tape Hun Maat, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, disability inclusion remained a national priority.
Through the National Disability Strategic Plans three of 2024 to 2028 and other development frameworks, Cambodia continues to promote accessibility, equality, social protections, and economic participation for persons with disabilities.
Recognizing that the financial inclusion is a key pathway to empowerment and independence.
Cambodia is integrating disability inclusion into the development of national financial inclusion strategies of 26 30.
We are also strengthening disability data and evidence based policy making to identify barriers and support inclusive developments.
Cambodia is proud to support the implementation of the Amman Berlin Declaration on global disability inclusion.
We are further advancing this commitment by introducing disability inclusion markers within our nationals official development assistance database to help ensure that development cooperation benefit persons with disabilities and leave no one behind.
I look forward to our discussions and to learning from the valuable experience and good practices shared by participant today and to learning from the experience and good practice is shared by all participants.
I thank you.
Thank you for those insights and we have indeed seen how the Kingdom of Cambodia has taken action across sectors, including through financing to scale up disability inclusion in the country.
Thank you for your thoughts and your words.
Let me now pass on the floor.
I have the distinct pleasure of doing it to His Excellency, Ahmed Habaknesh, Deputy permanent representative of the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan to the UN.
The floor is yourself.
Thank you, Mr.
Koppal, for giving me the floor and I'm very pleased to be joining this very distinguished group of ambassadors and delegates here in the room or with those who are joining us via web TV.
I and to be really discussing the important topic of this side event that Jordan was very pleased in co sponsoring through the Higher Council, of course.
My brief remarks will focus on the role Jordan plays in disability inclusive financing as a political commitment.
I'm sure that His Excellency, doctor Mohamed as the Secretary-General General of the Higher Council will dive deeper into this very topic.
Colleagues, Jordan views disability inclusion not as a standalone social issue.
But as a core component of sustainable development, human rights, and national reform.
This commitment was clearly reflected in the engagement of Jordanian stakeholders during the global Disability Summit of 2025, which resulted in more than 130 commitments from 88 national entities, spanning from government institutions, civil society organizations, academia, private sector, and international partners.
One of the key lessons emerging from the global disability summit is that sustainable disability inclusive financing must be grounded in national ownership and government leadership.
As a co host of the summit alongside Germany and the International Disability Alliance, Jordan advocated for placing governments at the center of national disability inclusion efforts with a view to ensuring that disability rights are mainstreamed across national development agendas, sectoral strategies, and public finance systems.
In the same vein, Jordan has also sought to translate commitments into concrete financing mechanisms.
A notable example is the Jordanian German debt SWAp Initiative, which demonstrated how innovative financing approaches can support disability inclusion while strengthening national systems.
With that, colleagues, I conclude my remarks, and again, I look forward to listening to the valuable insights by doctor raze.
Thank you so much, sir.
Thank you so much, Your Excellency.
Indeed, we are indeed have not seen the leadership of Jordan at the global stage, as always, as matching it by actions in the country that you have just outlined.
Thank you so much for that.
I now have the pleasure of giving the floor to Her Excellency, Kb Brides, Vice Minister of Social Solidarity and Inclusion, Timon Listte.
The floor is yours, ma'am.
Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Excellencies.
At the outset, Tim or less wishes to convey its highest appreciation to UNIC for conveying this important event and for the coaches invitation extended to my delegation to present our experience with the Disability Market for Disability budgeting Tracking.
We express our sincere gratitude for UNIC continued partnership and steadfast support promoting the rights, inclusion, and dignity of persons with disability in Timor-Leste.
This dialogue provides a valuable platform for Timor ste to share its national efforts to strengthen disability inclusive budgeting, undertaking in alignment with our obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities CRPD, and guided by the National Disability Action Plan 2021, 2030.
Since the ratification of the CRPD in 2023, Tim or less has pursued a series of concrete and strategic measures to enhance the disability coherence and accountability of disability related investments across government.
First, the government of Tim or less has introduced in 2026, a disability inclusion budget market that enables the systematic identification and classification of disability related expenditures within the national budget, therefore, strengthening transparency, accountability, evidence based decision making while supporting more coordinated planning, budgeting and monitoring across all sectors.
Second, team more less strengthening cross sectoral collaboration among the 11 line ministries led by the Minister of Social Solidarity and Inclusion and the Minister of Finance, together with development partners and organizations of Persons with Disabilities.
This enhanced cooperation has helped institutionalize the understanding that disability inclusion is a cross cutting responsibility, requiring coherent and coordinated action across education, health, social protection, employment, accessibility, and community development.
Third, disability considerations have been integrated into national planning and budgeting guidelines.
Tools and guidance have been developed to support line ministries in applying the disability inclusion budgeted marker, and in reporting on disability related expenditures.
Fourth, the government has undertaken capacity building initiatives for official at national and municipal levels to strengthen the ability to integrate disability perspective into planning, budgeting, implementation, and monitoring.
These efforts are essential to embedding disability inclusion with public financial management systems.
Excellency is more or less underscored the importance of strengthening international cooperation and technical partnership to advance disability inclusion budget, and to further refine the national disability market for disability budget tracking.
In line with its obligation under the CRPD to more or less the recalls that Article Article 4 0.2 calls upon state parties to mobilize the maximum available resources and where necessary to seek international cooperation to progressively realize the rights of persons with disability.
Article 31 requires the collection of appropriate data.
Every ten years Torley holds a national census to inform evidence based policy making and Article 33 mandates effective national implementation and monitoring framework.
While the CRPD does not explicitly reference a disability market, this provision collectively provide a normative basis for development tools that enhance visibility, accountability, and tracking a disability related investment.
Tim lesity therefore welcomes continued collaboration with development partners.
UN agency and organizations of persons with disability to strengthen national capacity, improve data systems, and ensure the public finance effectively advances the rights and inclusion of all persons with disabilities.
Excellency.
Despite these important advances to more or less recognizes that significant challenges remain.
Disability budgeted tracking is still at early stage of development.
Further efforts are required to strengthen data systems and has institutional coordination and establish clearer and more consistent methodology for identify and monitoring disability related expenditure.
Improving disability disaggregated data also remains a priority to support more robust evidence based policy making.
Looking ahead, the more or lesste has identified several priority areas, strengthening disability responsive budgeting across all sectors, developing more robust and user friendly tracking tools, improving disability disaggregated data, ensuring meaningful participation of persons with disability and their representative organizations, enhance institutional capacity at national and municipal levels, expanding technical cooperation and knowledge exchange with international partners.
More or less the firmly believes that effective budget tracking is essential to ensuring accountability and translating commitments into tangible improvements in the lives of persons with disability.
In closing, the more or less to reaffirm its strong commitment to working closely with UNICEF development partners and organizations of persons with disabilities to advance inclusive public financing and to ensure the full participation of persons with disabilities at national Development.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Your Excellency, for pointing out a very concrete example which is so relevant for our discussion on financing today and also highlighting the partnership of the government with Organizations of Persons with Disabilities.
So thank you so much for it.
I now have the pleasure to give the floor to miss Astrid Harns, Senior Policy Advisor, Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany.
Astrid, the floor is yours.
Thank you so much, Koppal.
Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to also open this discussion today on financing disability inclusion in the next decade of the CRPD.
I thank all the contributing speakers and all the participants, and I would like to express a special thanks to the Kingdom of Cambodia and to UNICEF.
The CRPD is not only a human rights treaty, it is a blueprint for inclusive development.
To deliver on it, we need predictable domestic resources and well aligned international public finance, including official development assistance.
We all know fiscal space is tightening, growth is weak, debt is high, and crises overlap.
In this context, disability inclusion too often loses out in political and budget decision.
This must not happen.
The rights of persons with disabilities are not optional.
They are essential for resilient and fair societies.
Domestic financing must remain the backbone of the CRPD implementation.
Governments should ring fence disability responsive spending.
They need better disability disaggregated data and budget tagging and they should use evidence to protect high impact, low cost measures, as it has mentioned also by my previous speaker.
In the same time, we must protect ODA.
ODA works best when it follows national CRPD plans, uses country system, and builds capacity for inclusive public services.
It should de risk domestic and private finance for accessible infrastructure while keeping services affordable.
It must also reach those at most risk such as women, girls with disabilities, and displaced persons with disabilities.
The Arman Berlin Declaration, with its 15% for the 15% target, hopefully is a game changer.
For the first time ever, it sets concrete and measurable targets on disability inclusion.
It helps governments and endorsing multilateral organizations to align ODA with CRPD implementation.
Organizations of persons with disabilities must be at the table.
Nothing about us without us must also guide budget decisions.
Let me give you a short personal example.
On my way to the airport, I met my neighbor, a very dedicated teacher at an inclusive focus school in Berlin.
He told me they were currently discussing a new school strategy.
In practice, however, what is labeled inclusion is often still only integration.
Students are present, but not fully participating as the daily routines are not adapted to their needs.
His message was clear.
We need to convince people that real inclusion of persons with disabilities means real participation in learning, in decision making in everyday life.
This requires financial resources, of course.
This is true for education policy in Berlin, and it is just as true for international development cooperation and for how we finance the CRPD.
Let me end with a simple message.
Tight budgets are no excuse to sideline rights.
Domestic finance brings scale, ownership, and sustainability.
We will hear some of these success stories in this side event from our IDA panelists.
I look particularly forward to learning more on the experiences on the implementation of the Arman Berlin Declaration.
Thank you very much and I look forward to our fruitful dialogue.
Over to you.
Good.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, At, for the powerful remarks and for reminding us of the key instrument that we have the An Berlin Declaration to further expand financing for disability inclusion, Al highlighting the importance of domestic financing and cannot not mention the practical example that you gave of how integration and inclusion differs and what we should be driving at.
Thank you so much for drawing our attention to that.
We will now have a panel discussion with four very qualified people in the sector who are working on this.
Following that, we'll have time for a short Q&A.
To begin with, let me give the floor to my colleague, Alex Goth, who is a program specialist on disability policy and Systems at UNICEF and Alex will share his insights from the work that has been done around the GDIR as well as some of the financing work that has been done at UNICEF.
Alex.
Thank you very much, Gopal, for those introduction and thank you very much for the opening remarks.
Can we have the presentation on screen, please? Thank you.
I would like to share with you some of the insights that you can find online in the background paper on financing acceleration of disability inclusion that we did for the global Disability Inclusion report for GDS 2025.
We did the most comprehensive to date comparative analysis of national budget in low and middle income countries with regards to disability specific expenditure.
Getting data is not easy and I really want to congratulate Tim Oleste because the more country will use trackers and marker, the easier it will be to do this kind of work.
What we've seen is the emergence of two benchmark.
We have a first group of countries that are what we consider initial level of investment, which is usually between 00 1% of GDP and zero 1% of GDP and often countries that have different type of programs, but maybe that are either a bit fragmented or not reaching sufficient scale.
Then we have another group of countries that are at zero 1% of GDP.
And there is a clarity there.
It's countries that start to have program, notably social protection and cash transfer that get to scale.
Finally, we have a smaller group of countries that are around 00 5% of GDP, which is basically countries that have programs that scale with relative adequacy.
If we translate that to share of national budget, it ranges from 0.07 to 2.1% of national budget.
As an order of comparison, OECD countries spending average solely on social protection for disability, 1.5% of GDP.
What we looked also is, what was the distribution of expenditure between sectors.
Unsurprisingly to many of you, we see a concentration of expenditure in three ministries or sector, health, education, and social protection.
What is really striking is that the biggest driver to increase disability related expenditure is social protection.
It's basically the program that goes to scale the fastest and breaking the sailing of zero 1% of GDP.
One thing or so that we did and you will be able to see that in the report in more detail, is that overall most of the countries we've looked at, there has been increase of expenditure for persons with disabilities in recent years in real values as a share of GDP, as well as a share of government expenditure.
Ranging from 28% expenditure all the way to 300% increase of expenditure.
Even in some countries where significant economic crises have happened, for instance, Argentinine in past years, we've seen that there might have been a decrease in real value of the budget for person with disabilities, but it was fairly resilient and retain a certain increase in share of GDP.
So next, we try to estimate the financing gap and we discussed with many partners, we had a lot of ambition, and it has been much more difficult than we thought because there is not enough evidence.
We had a lot of difficulties to find costed intervention at scale.
What does it mean to do inclusive education at scale? How much does it cost to bring assistive technology at scale, to bring community support, et cetera Um, so we see, and this is a very nice and important trends, an increasing number of countries that have costed disability strategy or national disability action plan, which is helpful.
For instance, Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Rwanda, and some other countries here.
What we tried to do is focusing on, for instance, disability cash benefit or extension of health insurance because technically, they are easier to do.
We did that over five countries and we saw that whatever the scenario we took, whether it was a normative scenario or a more realistic national scenario, expenditure where at least three times more than what is currently being spent up to ten times.
We looked also at different channel of financing, how money flows from domestic revenue grants or borrowing.
I won't go into all the details.
You will see that in the report.
But one thing we did and you can also find it online, we did the first review of national disability funds in low and middle income countries.
Why? Because many disability rights legislation in store national funds for persons with disabilities.
And actually, there is no real evidence on how those funds work, what are their added value.
I invite you to look at the paper we did on this.
What we see is that One of the issue is that many of those funds do not have clear objective.
What are they supposed to do in addition to what ministries have been doing? For instance, some do, like in Kenya, there are two funds that have fairly specific objective, but in some circumstances, it's not so easy to understand what is the added value of the fund.
Another issue is also the lack of specific revenue for the funds.
Few countries are, for instance, quota levy with regards to employment.
But often the money that goes in the fund comes from the general budget.
The question is, the money that goes in the fund, is it money that is going in the fund instead of going to line ministries working on inclusion or it's on top of the money that is going to line ministries and local government.
But we see also that those funds like in Cambodia or Kenya can play a catalytic role.
We looked also at some other mechanism like earmarking, For instance, in Ghana, there is a 3% in marking for fund that goes to local authorities that are dedicated to person with disabilities.
We have some case studies there also.
We made a preliminary analysis of inclusive ADA.
Um, and the global Disability Fund has started now a much more ambitious analysis which will give us even more granularity.
What we've seen in the recent years is that there has been an increase in reporting of disability inclusive ODA thanks to the OECD deck marker, and we've seen an increase of mainstream program that what we call the score one.
However, there is no increase or a decrease of disability specific program in ODA.
In our effort to support the Aman Berlin Declaration implementation, we looked also at how different countries, what happened in terms of share of ODA activities by disability score.
We see that in many countries actually the majority of programs are not score, so it's hard for government to know exactly what is happening, and this is where the initiative of Cambodia is so important.
Finally, some key priorities that we have extracted and that deserve much more evidence and research and discussions.
The first thing, and we will hear more today about it, the ensuring meaningful OPD participation and budgeting processes.
We found some evidence.
There are a little case study, but much more is needed.
Coordinated investment across ministries, especially also to finance cross cutting services.
I always give the example of sign language interpreter systems.
No ministry can finance it alone.
But it fall between the cracks.
At the end because there is no common financing mechanism for such services that education, health justice and others need, those system do not develop.
We need stronger evidence and tracking, and we need costing priority reform at scale and defining realistic financing pathways, embedding disability inclusion and those costed scenarios in national development plan and financing strategy.
Also, making better use of existing expenditure.
Public procurement is a fantastic tool where accessibility requirement could leverage much more inclusive expenditure and we didn't find clear evidence that many countries were actually using those mechanism to really leverage.
Finally, a very important point in low and middle income countries where fiscal capacity are constrained more than in some other context, it's critical that government use public finance to enable core resourcing with civil society and the private sector.
To do that with equity and to ensure that there is an alignment between domestic resource investment and ODA.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Alex, for breaking down these very technical issues into digestible bites for us.
Of course, there are so many insights that are there in that I would like to invite all of you to go through the report.
It's very, very essential and critical.
Thank you, Alex.
We now have a video which has been kindly prepared by His Excellency, Samat Ong, the Secretary-General of the Disability Action Council from the Kingdom of Cambodia.
Good afternoon to all and good morning from Cambodia.
First of all, I would like to say thank you to UNICEF and to the organizer of the S event of the Corp 19 of 2026 on the S event of financing Fasibility inclusion and Scale.
I'm pleased to share with you on the advancing Fasbility inclusive, ODA and budgeting in Cambodia.
We are sharing to you here on the three progress made in Cambodia, on the Cambodia progress to board implementation of Ala Declaration on disability inclusion, financing, and budgeting.
First, as you know, Disability action Council have already conduct first comprehensive disability, inclusive budget review and financing analysis with ODA data on Cambodia.
By using 2023 data, there are two point on the progress is the report is already included in UNIC Global disability inclusion report.
And the second is the DI budget monitoring tool was adopted by our Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The second program we have already disseminated A Berlin declaration at both national and sub national in Cambodia.
And the third program is DI marker, was officially adopted by CDC in September 2025, and they are now in full implementation with the first ODA data and also with DI marker is now being analyzed.
I would like also to share the progress of the progress of the inclusion of the MACA in Cambodia of the AI database as follows.
In early 2025, Cambodia, as you know, we are already selected to be a pilot country for the Amen Berlin Declaration with the key stakeholder and also introduced to the Amen Berlin Declaration.
In April 2025, Cambodia, already attend global Disability Submit, and we also end with all of you the declaration in May to October 2025, with the support of UNICEF, DAC, and the Council for the development of the board DSEDC work together to integrate the inclusion marker into the National Official Development Assistance database.
Also in September 2025, CDC IT, data has adjust and DI marker include into manual and guidance.
In October 2025, DI marker has already oriented to all development partners, including UN agency in Cambodia.
Mynna 2026, in full implementation of the DI marker by development partner in ODA reporting to CDC.
I would like to share the score of the disability marker in Cambodia Office of Development Assistant ODA database with the falling.
The significantly well mean that disability include is set in principle objective of the project with the objective of the project would not exist.
For the moderately well, you know, activity have been formulated to address the relevant disability concern alongside the project man objective.
For my no liver mean I very few minor activity, but disability concern minimally addressed.
The level of no means that this project does not include any activity related to disability inclusion in any way.
This is the DI marker that we have falling but is aligned with OECD disability inclusion me.
I would like to share all of you about the budget inclusion here in alignment with the disability the aligned with the National Disability Strategic Plan in the S Sema here.
All the budget include into the seven S of the National Disability Strategy Plan.
One is employment and economy inclusion, and second is inclusive healthcare and rehabilitation.
Third is inclusive education and lifelong learning.
Fourth is social assistance disability inclusive, fifth inclusive and accessible community, sixth justice and gender, and the last one is climate resilience.
This also was allocated with the ODA.
I would like to share to all of you our next step with the form and activity.
We are going to analyze and disseminate the result of disability inclusion marker in ODA database.
The second priority is we are planning to introduce disability inclusion marker in UN system in Cambodia.
The third priority is we are going to update disability inclusive budget review and ODA data.
And the last priority for next step is we are going to continue engagement of development partner and OPD in monitoring the implementation of the marker in ODA database.
I thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you.
It is so wonderful to see such practical examples, instances of work, which can inform so many of us.
Believe me, I have been attending course for many years now and it is getting more and more practical and as it should be.
Thank you virtually, Your Excellency, for highlighting to us all these instances.
Let me now move to doctor Mouhamed Deezer, who is the Secretary-General of the Higher Council for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Jordan.
Thank you very much, Rupal and I would like to thank also UNICEF and Cambodia and excellency distinguished colleagues.
I will start with national examples from Jordan and some practices we are attempting to proceed with, and then I will land in at a global level picture regarding the inclusive financing and Main Declaration.
Actually, as I'm saying always, we didn't take the Global Disability Summit for granted.
Since 2022 when we started the process with BM Z and International Disability Alliance, we thought that this is one of the turning points and the remarkable opportunities for Jordan in order to advocate at all levels and to make radical changes not only during or after the summit but before the summit.
So this is why we started to initiate a lot of initiatives and some practices in Jordan.
For our specific theme here, we made a quick analysis to our budgetary system and to our financial system in Jordan.
To tell you the truth, as so many countries, we found out that the disability in comparison to other indicators, for example, related to gender and they are clearly, obviously included in the budget and they are accountable in front of the parliament.
The disability is still way behind this.
We started with asking for concrete steps by the government and we succeeded to convince the the Council of Ministers and the Prime Minister to instruct all ministers.
We started with ministries, health, education, social development, Public Works, and the Ministry of Planning and international cooperation transportation.
We asked the Prime Minister to instruct them to start with allocating at least 1% as a minimum of their annual budget to implement their obligations in our disability rights law.
Then the challenge began here.
They agreed, and we started as a technical hub in Jordan to review these budgets and Some of the ministries, for example, were they felt very safe and they said, Look, we are allocating more than 1% So when we review their budget, we found out that they have, for example, some chapters started by disability services or disability staff, and then you find allocated amount here and there.
But when it comes to the annual action plan of these ministries, you can't really find the allocated amounts in a cross cutting distribution, or still you still ask, where is the missing link or the missing point because the services of this ministry is not yet accessible and affordable and accommodative for persons with disabilities.
So then we recognize that there is conceptual issue must be identified by these ministries about what does it mean? We need to come together to clear definition when we are talking about inclusive financing or inclusive budget as they love to call it.
Because for us, we have qualitative and quantitative elements must be very clear from our point of view as entity responsible to monitor the implementation of the CRPD and the disability rights law.
The qualitative is How on the earth can I accept allocated money, for example, for some segregated or enemy like services as part of the budget to be considered one of the indicators for inclusive budget or financing, like allocating money for institutions, for example, maintenance or for the staff.
For us, it doesn't work like that, and even the running cost, they, of course, consume the two third of the allocated budget, which is called or titled disability services.
Here again, we were encountered with the second challenge that We don't have indicators, we don't have adequate monitoring mechanism.
And to tell you the truth, I called all the relevant international agencies at the time in Jordan, US aid, UN agencies, asking for an expert or experts who can really track the budget adequately and they said, we don't have, it's not easy to find.
And then We made, just to talk about the quantitative, as I said, we got in a little bit debate with some entities about the running cost and the capital expenditure or investment in order to identify or to consider their budget inclusive or not.
Then we made another exercise and it was, I would say more successful and unique in Jordan, that we started to negotiate with the municipalities, the local authorities, and for the first time ever in my country, everybody in the South, one of the biggest governoates, the Council of the governoate approved annual budget to be allocated for accessibility, for disability, to ensure access to local services and community services for persons with disabilities.
For us, this is one of the greatest achievements ever we jointly did with the local authorities because the disability now after three years of this practice became main item on their agenda.
Yet we still need a real transparent indicators in order to see what does this represent in the municipal budget as well as the national budget.
Here, a Main Declaration came to support us in bringing this to the highest level in our country at the governmental level.
And I've been involved honorably in the drafting process of a member in declaration.
And as a guy with a legal or a person with a legal background, although this document is seven pages, I think I've never been in such a hard process.
And the paradoxy thing I observed that the same questions, the same debate we have during the drafting process, are the same questions, same debates that I witnessed during the ad hoc committees, during the drafting process of the CRPD.
How do we mean by inclusion and accessibility in international cooperation development? Are we talking about volumes, projects, or activities? How we can ensure as Global South that this wouldn't be interpreted by the recipients or by Global South that it's maybe um, not exemptions, but at least a level of loss or reduction in their obligations.
Same questions from the global South, how we can ensure secure ownership, identify our own priorities.
It was very healthy debate, but again, it linked the past with the present in order to come up with a very promising future document right now in my point of view.
We are so happy to see that UniSAF supported Cambodia in order to be a pilot country.
We are on the same pathway on the same road and I would conclude with this because with Germany and International Disability Alliance, we decided that in July Hopefully, because we postponed this three times due to the situation in the Middle East, but hopefully we are going to organize a regional summit post GDS.
Two objectives in this summit.
We want to give the opportunity for minor region countries to tell us where are they in their commitments implementation.
Second, which is very important, we want also to support a model in the Mia region by supporting five countries from the region in order to come up with framework to implement a Man Belin Declaration.
I'm so proud that Jordan was the first country with Germany to announce their first joint commitment before the Global Disability Summit here in New York and the Cop in 2024.
By announcing the debt swap in which Germany signed an agreement with my government for debt swap for 30 million euros, they were allocated to support the water sector and the agreement says that there is 5 million euros shall be allocated for inclusive education to support 27 schools in order to be inclusive for all in particular persons with disabilities.
In addition to 10 million to establish or to establish a German Jordan school for all, including persons with disabilities.
Such example at the international level.
For us, it means a lot and humbly speaking, it puts Jordan as pioneer in our humble attempts in order to reach and achieve full inclusive financing system.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Buhaed.
One thing I was realizing while I was listening to your remarks is, there is no shortcuts.
It is hard work.
Observation to detail, following the money from the budget line to services and so on.
There is no shortcuts.
But it's great that we have this knowledge now.
How do we do it? I think the previous presentations focused a lot of the what, which is equally important and then how do we do it on the ground? Follow the money.
It was really great and also the debt swap debt swap example.
These are instruments, vehicles, mechanisms that we can increasingly use as a sector to expand financing on disability inclusion.
Thank you so much.
Mona, and across all this work, the participation, engagement, and leadership of Organizations of persons with disabilities cannot be mentioned and reiterated enough.
It is a great pleasure to welcome Mr.
Jose Viera, Executive Director of the International Disability Alliance for your reflections on how Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, in practical ways can engage can provide the leadership on this issue.
Over to you.
Good morning, everyone.
Excellencies, colleagues and friends.
First, I really want to on behalf of the international disability extend our warm appreciation to the organizers of this event, UNICEF and also all the member state presence, our colleagues from Jordan, Germany, and other entities within the UN system.
When preparing for this very important side event, I asked one of my colleagues who follows the conference of state parties very closely to check how many side events over the last couple of years have actually addressed the issue of financing for disability inclusion and reviewing more than 200 side events that have happened over the last couple of years here in New York every June.
The result is definitely a good testimony of how much we have tried to discuss but never get down to what really needs to be discussed.
Again, the figure is speaks by itself.
Out of 200 side events, we could identify only five side events that actually talk about financing for disability inclusion.
But there is one additional element that for me is even more interesting that reviewing those 200 side events, we did find a higher number of side events that did talk about how to finance different agendas.
Health, education, social protection, so on and so forth.
That's again, a very important element that we should be aware of because I think this side event, this coming facilitated by UNICEF and all the co organizer of this event, is actually the natural evolution from speaking or working in silos to coming together and address the issue from a holistic and genetic approach when it comes to financing for disability inclusion.
That's for me the first big reflection I think we have, over the last 20 years, worked significantly and with a relatively good level of success in addressing the issues when it comes to what I like to call instead of financing funding agendas, but not financing from a strategic point of view.
So not only on behalf of IDA, we really welcome this side event, but for us, this side event is a landmark in order to advance from this fragmented approach to only talk about how we are going to collect money and allocate money to how are we going to build collective sustainable mechanisms to sustainably finance the stability inclusion? The second important reflection that I really want to bring to this table from the perspective of organization of persons with disability is how we have progress as a community when it comes to engaging in this very important and much needed agenda.
We all know that a significant amount of time and energy after the adoption of the CRPD has gone into awareness raising about the convention and the potential of it, but also in the very much needed back then work around adjusting policies, programs, and legal frameworks at the national level for them to be in a way in line with CRPD standards.
But very little has been dedicated to reflect about the enablers for the progress that we have made after 20 years of the CRPD.
And financing for disability inclusion as a topic as a whole is, I would put it at the level of discussions like accessibility a couple of years ago.
What do I mean by this is basically, we all know that accessibility in a way is a precondition for inclusion.
I will definitely extrapolate that reflection to financing for disability inclusion.
Talking about financing is basically unlocking the opportunities to really be able to be effective when it comes to inclusion of persons with disabilities in any agenda, health, education, employment, urban development, et cetera But I really want to bring in addition to some of those more deeper reflection, very concrete examples in which we as the representative voices of persons with disabilities, we do feel that we are moving from just consultation to meaningful participation.
The first example is something that has been said already by my dearest colleagues from Germany and Jordan is the Ann Berlin Declaration.
But I would actually go one step further and not only acknowledging the success of having a declaration like the An Berlin Declaration, but also how we are implementing it and monitoring it.
With the support of Germany and with the engagement of Jordan, UNICEF and our colleagues from the UN Global disability Fund, the Amanda Berlin Declaration established a help desk, but a help desk that is not only for governments that are supposed to implement the 15 for the 15, but also for OPDs to be equipped with the necessary resources to advocate to influence governments for achieving the 15 for the 15.
Again, the An Bery Declaration help desk and the workstream around organization of Persons with Disabilities is a clear signal that we are no longer consulted about what we think on the 15 for the 15 only.
But how can we as organization of persons with disabilities, as those platforms that bring persons with disabilities at the national level together, as organizations that respond to the needs and demands of our communities, we can be part of the design of initiatives that then governments will implement to achieve the 15 for 2015.
So in particular, the help desk under the Anand Berlin Declaration is among all the existing spaces where we are discussing the financing for disability inclusion agenda, one in which we as organization of persons with disabilities are co designing, as well as continuing our role, our DNA, which is to advocate and to ensure that governments do implement policies and programs in line with the CRPD standards.
But let me bring to the table another example in which clearly we have moved from consultation to meaningful participation.
This is again under the umbrella of the Global Disability Summit 2025, and it is the Global Disability Inclusion report.
If we look at reports of these natures in the past, first, there hasn't been that many, and those who have somehow tried to do what the GDIR report has successfully achieved did not include this cross cutting perspective on how to finance disability inclusion.
The Disability Inclusion report, led by a group of different stakeholders under the leadership of UNICEF, but with the contribution of many stakeholders, some of them present in this room, have shown that we can bring the disability inclusion financing agenda to the intersection of health, education, social protection, et cetera, but even more that we are doing it based on evidence and data collected.
For us, that's another milestone that instead of continuing talking or advocating based on what we understand is needed, now we have better data, more data to influence more and better policies.
So once again, OPDs have been placed as a data collecting agent, as organizations that have managed to bring experiences, good practices, case studies, and contribute through the report and on the financing for disability inclusion, but also across the different perspective of the different agendas of the report.
One more example that I think it's absolutely important to highlight and has happened recently is the platform for disability inclusive financing action launched in collaboration between the International Disability Alliance and the UN Global disability Fund in the context of the financing for Development Conference in Sevilla, where basically we agreed together with other stakeholders that in order to advance disability inclusion and how to finance disability inclusion, we really needed to have a platform, a global platform, a multi stakeholder platform where we can discuss not only in theory, but in practice and exchanging knowledge and experiences on how to advance financing disability inclusion as an agenda.
So this platform that brings different stakeholders together is the opportunity to exchange, learn from each other, and even more importantly, something that, from our perspective is the big gap, and that is the coordination among the different stakeholders that even when guided by goodwill on this agenda, we are still missing that coordinating platform.
To be absolutely fair to the platform is something that needs to be put in action.
I consider this an invitation to join the platform and to make it a useful and a public good for everyone.
The last but not least example where I do believe that we have shifted from consultation to meaningful participation is the GDS joint commitment between Germany and Jordan that our colleagues from Germany and Jordan have already referred to, and that is the depth swap between Germany and Jordan and not only it is one of the best example in which innovation, joint collaboration, cross border partnership had been included, but also is the response of what we heard loud and clear from many organization of persons with disabilities in Jordan, and that was the need for advancing disability inclusion, but in particular, inclusive education for that community.
I think we really need to acknowledge and perhaps have a very clear dimension of what that GDS joint commitment produced and the impact generated.
That commitment showed us that when there is political will, but also there is a decision of investing and promoting innovation, we can address, in this case, one of the clear demands from the disability community in Jordan, and even when the resources are limited, the two governments, Germany, and Jordan managed a way in which the solution was built from OBDs and came back to OBDs and through OBDs to persons with disabilities.
In closing, I would say that not only looking back to those 200 side events and the very, in a way, limited number of side events that have addressed disability inclusion financing as an agenda, but at the same time, the encouraging examples that I just shared should set the scene for the future.
What we need for the future is definitely more and better knowledge and data generation, More examples like the An Berlin Declaration or the GDS joint commitment between Germany and Jordan and clearly, more spaces for organization of persons with disabilities and just to be absolutely clear, more spaces doesn't mean just to be invited, but to resource OBDs, to equip OBDs because the most interesting thing and with this, I'll close, when we, for example, hear what is happening in Cambodia or in other countries, The most important thing for us as Organization of Persons with Disabilities is to realize that Organization of Persons with Disabilities in Cambodia and in other countries do have now the knowledge, the expertise, not just to include or push for general inclusion, but also the knowledge to address very specific topics such as financing for disability inclusion.
Clearly, the future will be determined whether or not we are capable of coordinating, collaborating, and creating spaces for organization of persons with disabilities to address this topic from the perspective of data, evidence based, and even more building solutions and sustainable solutions.
Thank you.
That was very, very compelling and I think five out of 200, I think we'll get better with what we just heard over the last hour and a half.
Thank you for pointing out that to us, and also How we have to look at it at a holistic way, avoid fragmentation, and that applies to so many other things also, in addition to financing and giving us those practical examples and the expectation that we've laid out clearly from the persons with disabilities and the representative organizations.
What should that engagement look like? We cannot um, reiterate it enough.
Thank you so much as always, for those words and for the work.
Colleagues, friends, I'm afraid we do not have time for Q&A.
But these presentations were so rich, I think we can feel that we are breaking new ground in an understanding on how we will bring scale, what will bring scale.
And before, I would now like to invite doctor Olabu Alghab, Director of Global Disability Fund for the closing remarks.
The great contributions.
I'm very humbled to do the closing remarks after this example and discussions.
I'll be brief, but I just wanted to share the learning from the countries that the Global Disability Fund has been supporting to date.
The fund was established when the convention was ratified to support countries in the implementation of the convention.
Last year, when we developed the new strategy, we were very keen to understand the journeys the countries took and where did they stop.
The majority of countries, we were already in 100 countries last year.
Almost 70 countries, they stopped the design of policies and systems.
Many of them didn't even touch the financing and the monitoring of the implementation.
That was an eye opener to us and that was across the regions.
We wanted to see what the fund can do more.
But another finding that was interesting for us is that many of those who started the financing discussions focused only on the disability specific financing.
The disability budget, the specific services related to persons with disabilities, assistive devices, inclusive education initiatives.
It was either projectized or specific services to persons with disabilities.
It was barely touching the ecosystem at national level.
For us, Moving forward, the coming five years, the way the fund will support countries in terms of understanding how we can support better.
One key gap also we identified is that governments needs to understand how much stability costs without understanding that they will not put it in their budgets.
And that is a big gap and I want to put a lot of lines under this one because without this, it's not going to materialize.
This is the question where we get a block from the senior ministries across the sectors, but also the ministries of Finance.
This is very important for KDF at this moment to try to look how we can influence that.
The entry point for us the coming years, even though Many of our programs will come into the country thematically.
We're going to scope the countries across the ecosystem.
Colleagues mentioned how the architect of the financing is in terms of understanding from the tax revenue to the foreign aid and grants, to loans and FDA, where is disability there? If not, what can we do even if we are working on a narrower basis? Of course, colleagues mentioned the frameworks that are there globally, including the FFD four last year, the Anand Berlin Declaration, these are global instruments we will use, but we will also focus of understanding the domestic architect because that's different from one country to another.
Looking at the sector, but beyond the sector is also important.
That's why we are developing in collaboration with the He desk of amann Berlin Declaration, a clear framework of understanding of the context of the country at the entry level.
We understand what are we coming into and through the collaboration of all the actors, including, of course, the organizations of person disabilities, see how we can move the needed.
It's a long way and it's not going to be so easy and that's very important also to see the linkages between what we will do globally in terms of what Alex mentioned, the global understanding of the financing mechanisms, but also taking it at national level.
I wanted just to close also with very key important element that colleagues also touched upon and Jose importantly as well.
In countries where we saw sectorial financing, there is still limited understanding of the accountability system, which also Mohammed mentioned, it's understanding if the government takes a step forward of making that commitment, are they really translating it and what can we put in place to make sure we're learning from it? That's why for us the learning space at the GDF is growing because we want to capitalize with partners.
How can we move the learning across the countries without us coming and telling them what needs to be done.
We're really looking forward to working together with partners in the room.
Including colleagues in UNICEF, we are closely developing also the framework at country level, learning from the work that has been done in a few countries and hopefully next year we will have more to share.
Thank you so much.
I don't need to summarize anymore because you have not only given us an overview of the work that GDF will pursue over the years, but also some of the areas that we need to focus on.
Including on the domestic fronts.
Thank you so much for those very valuable insights and reflections.
Colleagues, we have come to the end of a very, very rich discussion.
I myself learned a lot, and I hope all of you have something to carry back into the work that we do.
And the colleagues here are reachable.
They are quite popular and most of us know each other.
So if there is any follow up noting that we couldn't have a Q&A, you're most welcome to follow up.
So thank you so much for being here with us and wish you a very nice rest of the course.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
And we couldn't have done it without the help of your.