Financial Independence in a Time of Disruption: Ensuring Social Protections and Improving Labour Force Participation for Persons with Disabilities (COSP19 Side Event)

Hello, everyone.
Welcome to this event.
It's a really important topic, very topical.
It's called Financial Independence in a time of disruption, ensuring social protection and improving labor force participation for persons with disabilities.
This event is co sponsored by the Permanent Missions to the United Nations for the governments of Canada, India, Germany, and Japan.
My name is Rupa Paval Momo, and I'm the Director General of the Disability Inclusion and Accessibility Directorate in the government of Canada.
I'm so happy to be moderating this session.
I'm really, really looking forward to the discussion.
Please note that this session is being webcast on UN web TV.
Welcome to everyone watching on this platform.
In the room, we have American Sign Language and English to French simultaneous interpretation.
We also have English captioning available.
Now I'd like to welcome our panelists from the Government of Canada, the Honorable Leslie Church, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Jobs and Families, the Honorable Mr.
Harish Pabtheni, permanent representative for the Government of India, Mr.
Robert Richard, Secretary-General, UN Department of Economic sorry.
I For the Federal Republic of Germany, my mistake.
I skipped that line.
Miss Bjoern Sancheer Assistant Secretary-General, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
I got that one right now.
Of course, our Canadian youth, Delegate Ainslie Wood, and Ambassador Michael Gord, who is the ambassador and deputy Permanent representative to the United Nations in New York from Canada.
With this, I will turn it over to Ambassador Gord for opening remarks.
Thank you so much, Rupa very Um, Hello, everyone.
Happy to be here.
With this very long title, Financial Independence in a time of disruption, ensuring social protections and improving labor force participation for persons with disabilities.
I just want to take a very quick moment to thank colleagues from the permanent missions of India, Germany, Japan, and also the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Usa for co sponsoring this really important event, and of course, to welcome all of the panelists and to thank them for their participation.
Uh, dear colleagues, we are facing a time when our economies and labor markets are being reshaped by rapid technological change, by climate pressures, and of course, by global uncertainty.
We feel it here at the UN every day of the year, and we must ensure that persons with disabilities are not left further behind, but instead are fully included in both shaping and in benefiting from these transformations.
This discussion comes at a critical moment.
Achieving financial independence requires that we bridge two key pillars, robust, inclusive social protection systems, and also meaningful access to decent work.
The must go hand in hand, removing the barriers that disincentivize persons with disabilities, supporting just transitions, and enabling their participation in evolving labor markets.
And today's event brings together very diverse perspectives and experiences to identify practical solutions to showcase policies that reduce poverty, that promote inclusive growth, and that support sustainable employment outcomes for persons with disabilities.
I'm going to stop there because you've come here not to listen to me, but to the panelists and our time is precious.
But again, I just want to thank everybody for making the time, and I really look forward to what I'm sure will be an enriching discussion.
So Rupa, back to you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Master Gerd.
Now it is an absolute honor to welcome the Honorable Leslie Church, who will provide opening remarks.
The Honorable Leslie Church was first elected as a member of parliament for Torando St.
Paul's in 2025, and she wears many hats as will be evidence from her title, which I will proceed to tell you.
She serves as parliamentary secretary to the Secretaries of State for Labor, for seniors, and for children and youth, and to the Minister of Jobs and Families and for Persons with Disabilities.
So over to you Parliamentary Secretary.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much for rebuttal time.
Thank you.
Responsible for intersectionality.
It's a real pleasure to be here on behalf of the minister that I'm working closely with Minister Patty Haidu, Minister of Jobs and Families.
Being here on her behalf this week has been a privilege and working with many of the organizations and civil society representatives that are here.
I thank you very much for taking the time on such an important topic.
I'm very pleased on behalf of our government to welcome all of the panelists and participants, particularly our co sponsors, the permanent Missions to the United Nations for the governments of Canada, of India, Thank you of Germany and Japan, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and our youth delegates Ainsley Wood A Lap and Katherine Jeremiah Giner.
I very much look forward to the discussion today.
Well, colleagues, this year we celebrate 20 years since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Over this time, Canada has collaborated with the disability community and all of Canada's provinces and territories to achieve many milestones that have enhanced the lives of persons with disabilities.
Canada takes a human rights based approach to disability, guided by the CRPD's key principle, nothing without us.
Canada promotes the use of a disability lens to ensure that disability considerations and the perspectives of persons with disabilities are considered when designing laws, programs, policies, and services.
V.
In March 2025, Canada, went to the Committee for disabled people's rights, Al, while celebrating the many achievements of Canada, the committee, um, put into place many domains that Canada needs to improve in the committee published 72 final observations and 90 recommendations, particularly on the Article 27, when it comes to work and employment, and especially Article 28 when it comes to sufficient, higher standard of living.
Um, with Article 25 when it comes to work and employment, the committee recognized that handicapped Canadians are confronted, uh, with obstacles, persistent systemic obstacles to employment.
During the past year, Canada worked with the community of um, handicapped people in order to formulate policies, Um, and our intention is to continue to encourage cooperation and partnerships with and across the community of handicapped disabled people.
So Canada finances projects in the long term and on the long term that takes place, takes into account people who have chemical sensibilities, indigenous peoples, young peoples, children, black Canadians and racialized Canadians.
Other projects also take into account to better understand the convention relative to the rights of handicapped people, we know that the workplace is changing quite quickly.
The last few years, we've seen the rise of uh, the platform economies, an increase in different informal ways of working, and legal and non traditional ways of working.
So, in addition to these changes, Canada is is Canada remains determined to put into place international norms when it comes to work such as non discrimination norms and equality in the workplace.
Canada is engaged in protecting the financial security of handicapped people through creating inclusive workplaces and putting into place inclusive policies for handicapped people and ensuring that everyone has access to decent work and a decent working condition.
Which is a whole of government blueprint for change, focused on financial security, employment, accessible communities, and a modern approach to disability inclusion.
The plan aims to make Canada more inclusive based on the principles of equality, non discrimination, and participation.
For today's side event, I want to focus on the financial security and employment pillars of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan.
Under the financial Security Pillar, the plan aims to improve the immediate and long term financial security of persons with disabilities and address longstanding financial exclusion and systemic inequities.
Cornerstone of the DF was the launch of the Canada Disability benefit last July.
This new federal benefit was designed for income with persons with disabilities aged 18 to 64.
It's not meant to replace existing provincial or territorial income support measures, but to supplement them.
It was created to fill a gap in federal social safety nets between the Canada Child benefit for children and old age security.
The CDB is an income tested benefit, meaning that the amount someone receives depends on their income.
It was designed to include an exemption for income earned up to a maximum amount, which can be exempted when calculating a person's benefit amount.
This approach helps to reduce barriers to work by not reducing support too quickly for benefit recipients who earn income through employment, self employment, or taxable scholarships.
The federal government worked collaboratively with provinces and territories to address regulatory amendments and payment design to ensure a consistent Pan Canadian implementation of the benefit.
The CDB is part of the larger fabric of social protections for Canadians, including the Canada Pension Plan disability benefits, the child disability benefit, the Canada workers benefit, and its disability supplement, and the Registered Disability Savings Plan.
This last plan, the RDSP was launched in 2008, was the first of its kind in the world.
It's a long term tax advantage savings plan that helps persons with disabilities build lifelong financial security.
Income tested bonds and matching grants are provided to help grow those savings over time.
In the years since the program was first introduced, Canada has paid over $5 billion Canadian in grants and $2 billion in bonds into registered disability savings plans, helping Canadians with disabilities across the country.
We've matched many of these supports though, with a disability benefits navigation program, recognizing that accessing income supports continues to be a significant issue and can be very, very complex, particularly when it comes to ensuring awareness, accessibility, and take up of benefits for persons with disabilities.
Canada's Accessible Canada Act, which sets a goal of a barrier free Canada by 2040, aims for the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities and their communities by identifying, removing, and preventing barriers to accessibility.
It's an ambitious goal.
It covers seven priority areas, including employment, and our progress toward a barrier free Canada has included creating new mechanisms to ensure the successful implementation of the Act.
This includes the appointments of a chief accessibility officer and an accessibility commissioner, both of whom have joined us in New York this week.
Under the Act, accessibility standards, Canada was established to develop national accessibility standards.
A new national standard on accessible and inclusive employment was developed to help employers recruit and retain diverse talent, provide timely accommodations to employees with disabilities, and increase workplace accessibility.
The standard includes a list of research projects which address barriers to and best practices for accessible employment.
Another key component of the disability inclusion action plan, employment pillar, was the launch of the employment strategy for Canadians with disabilities in 2024, representing a key commitment under the Act.
With a vision of closing the employment gap by 2040 between persons with and without disabilities, the strategy provides a framework to guide employers and workers with disabilities.
It ensures that federal government policies and programs include and serve persons with disabilities through a range of measures.
One of Canada's key federal employment and skills training programs for persons with disabilities is also the Opportunities Fund for persons with disabilities, which supports finding and keeping meaningful employment, career advancement, and pursuits surrounding entrepreneurship.
It also supports employers in creating more inclusive and accessible workplaces.
Canada recently strengthened investments in the Opportunities Fund in our 2026 spring economic update, more than doubling the program's annual funding.
The fund currently supports more than 6,000 persons with disabilities to prepare for, obtain, and maintain employment, as well as supporting over 115 community projects across Canada.
Finally, Canada's Enabling Accessibility Fund recently launched a funding call for activities that will eliminate infrastructure and technology related accessibility barriers in workplaces.
By improving the accessibility and safety of workplaces, the program aims to support long term employment and advancement of persons with disabilities.
I'm happy to report that more than 7,000 persons with disabilities have been hired by Canada's Federal Public Service since 2019, achieving and surpassing our goal of hiring 5,000 persons with disabilities by 2025.
So colleagues, financial security and employment cannot be approached separately.
Sustainable inclusion requires both strong social protections and accessible pathways to meaningful work for persons with disabilities.
Our continued efforts to respond to emerging barriers and priorities will require ongoing collaboration with the disability community.
I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panelists and discussing how we can better work together to ensure that no one is left behind.
Thank you.
Thank you, Parliamentary Secretary.
It is now a privilege to welcome the Honorable Harish Parvati, permanent representative for the Government of India.
The floor is yours.
Thank you.
Thank you, Rupa, for introducing me.
Secretary Leslie Church, Ambassador Michael, ASD, San Jaya, Robert Richard from the government of Germany, colleagues, friends, Excellencies, who are present in the room.
Allow me to thank the Permanent Mission of India and other co sponsors who have taken this initiative and for inviting us to be part of this to co sponsor it.
Friends, there are approximately 26.8 million persons with disabilities in India, which constitutes roughly 2.2% of our population.
Their financial independence cannot be viewed merely as something that is related to employment.
It also requires protection against income security, support for disability related costs, and removal of barriers that driven participation in education, skills, work, and enterprise.
India's efforts in this area are guided by the understanding that social protection and labor force participation must reinforce each other.
Social protection provides a foundation of security while education, skilling, credit and access to credit, and employment opportunities enable persons with disabilities to move towards autonomy and self reliance.
Increasingly, India has realized that leveraging digital technology can be the bridge connecting these two.
India has built a multi layered social protection framework.
This includes disability pension support, special focus for the different disabled and government schemes for development and poverty alleviation, assistance for access to assistive device under a federal government scheme, health coverage through the Prime Minister's National Public Health Insurance scheme, community rehabilitation through the Dan Dal D Van and Rehabilitation scheme for persons with disabilities, and scholarships across every level of education from pre secondary education to doctoral level, and even overseas education.
Together, they form a robust safety net for persons with special needs.
Over the past decade, scholarships alone have reached over 315,000 students with financial assistance disbursed to the tune of over $105 million.
What is transforming such service delivery is digital technology, the use of digital public infrastructure to leapfrog and do things in a much shorter time frame than what it would have taken to do in the normal course.
India's unique Disability Identification project is creating a national database and a centralized platform for disability certificates and special cards that would identify persons with disabilities.
This is intended to eliminate duplication and fraud.
Enable online applications and renewals and integrates benefit management across multiple schemes, both of the federal government and of various provincial governments.
This constitutes the digital spine of India's disability welfare system.
The PM Dutch Portal of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities adds another layer to this digital framework.
It is a one stop platform connecting persons with disabilities to skill training and employment opportunities.
It's anchored by two modules, one for skill development and the other for employment.
The De Vg and Kaushal Vikas is a skill development scheme for persons with disabilities, which offers over 250 courses with a registration that is based on the unique disability ID.
In addition, the National De Vang Finance and Development Corporation offers concessional finance for self employment and entrepreneurship for persons with disabilities.
The Van and Rose Garcetu is an employment bridge for persons with disabilities and seeks to bridge the gap between trained candidates and employers by providing a dedicated digital platform to facilitate employment of persons with disabilities.
It works very closely with the private sector, including large corporations like Amazon and other firms like Youth for Jobs, widening the employment pipeline for persons with disabilities.
These efforts are fully complemented by our national Career Service Centers for the differently abled, which support vocational guidance, counseling, skill assessment, and employment facilitation.
Finally, we have the Diva Cam MA, which is an annual nationwide fair organized by the Federal Department for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, which connects artisans and entrepreneurs with disabilities to markets providing them the visibility that they need to better market their products and for recognition for their skills and entrepreneurship.
Friends, another digital initiative is the Sugamyahara app, which was recently revamped with an AI powered chat bot and a more intuitive interface.
It aims to make India more accessible and make public infrastructure, public transportation, and ICT systems universally accessible for persons with disabilities.
It allows citizens to report accessibility barriers across the country through geotagged photographs.
It allows them to access government schemes and track resolutions to the complaints lodged.
India's most ambitious digital intervention is the Universal benefit interface formally launched in May last year.
At its core, it's a purple dot, which is a trusted digital profile backed by machine readable credentials.
It enables the government sector, private players, the CSR programs of companies in the private sector, and NGOs connect to a single network.
Persons with disabilities can broadcast their needs across financial, educational, and other domain without repeated logins or paperwork and receive support at every stage.
The universal benefits interface attempts to reframe the central question from, are you eligible to what do you need? In the one year it has been in operation, it has had significant success in reaching out and addressing the requirements and needs of persons with disabilities.
Friends, together, these initiatives signal a coherent, a technology anchored vision where every person with disability can move towards autonomy, towards dignity, and especially towards financial independence.
India's vision is not to merely protect the differently able from disruption, but to enable them to participate in the economic and social progress of the country with dignity and independence.
It is a work in progress, and as we undertake this exercise, we also reach out to our friends and partners in the global South and other developing countries to look for solutions that can work in real world, to make available our own experiences of implementing these technology driven programs, especially digital public infrastructure at population scale, in our case, to make it available at no cost so that they can adapt and use it in their own countries according to their own unique national circumstances and contexts.
This is something we actually encourage both at the UN through the India UN Development Partnership Project, along with other friends in the Global South, through the PSA Fund, the India, Brazil, South Africa Fund, where we make available some of these schemes to our friends in the Global South.
Once again, thank you, Madam, for organizing this program, and I look forward to having good discussion on some of these.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Perbthani.
We now turn to our next panelist, Mr.
Robert Richard, who is the Director General for Social Affairs and Safety of Work in the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Health and Equality of the Federal State of Saxony on Health.
That title almost rivals that of the Parliamentary Secretary Church.
And over to you, Mr.
Richard.
Thank you very much much.
Dear Secretary, Leslie Church, Dear Ambassador God, dear Assistant Secretary, Dear Harris and Dear Gord.
I'm very appreciated to have the possibility to tell you something about the strength and that Germany, highlighting the work and the use of access AI to support accessibility inclusion.
In the labor market and the employment of persons with disabilities such as those legislative reforms, which aim to reduce barriers to employment, incentivize inclusive hiring practices and help integrate persons with disabilities in the labor market.
This is the issue that you gave me and thank you for this very interesting issue.
Let me say some preliminary notes.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in all areas of life and consequently impacts the lives of people with disabilities too.
Its deployment presents both opportunities and risks to ensure that people with disabilities truly benefit their needs must be taken into account from the very beginning of AI development and alignment.
The fact that the coalition of the government in Germany agreement has set this as a goal is highly welcome.
Numerous opportunities arise from AI enabled assistive technologies that empower people with disabilities to participate more effectively and lead more self determined lives.
For example, a person with a severe physical impairment can use an II system to control a computer via head or eye movements.
Alternatively, a blind person can perceive their surroundings through AI that recognizes objects in the room and makes them audible.
A project founded by the Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs is developing an AI designed to support people on the autism spectrum in the workplace.
It reduces sensory overload and thus stress by using special headphones to filter out irrelevant noises during conservations.
As part of the AI CE Compass, we say in German, inclusive Project also founded by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Aids, a competence center for AI enabled assistive technologies in the workplace is being established.
This initiative includes the creation of a database that collects and describes various AI enabled assistive technologies.
People with disabilities and companies can seek advice and test AI systems in practical laboratories.
People with disabilities also benefit from AI systems designed for the general public, such as generative II models like Ctipine other large language models.
A prerequisite is that these systems are accessible and that people with disabilities possess the necessary digital skills to operate them.
The cross generational Skills Initiative enshrined in the Coalition Agreement addresses precisely this point.
Department five of the ministry will ensure that the lead agency, another Ministry of youth and family, takes the needs of people with disabilities into account.
However, not all AI systems currently meet the expectations placed upon them.
For instance, some providers promise that every day or technical texts can be automatically translated in easy language.
It's a simplified form of communication.
Given the current state of technology, the results of such translations are not yet comprehensible to users of easy language and require professional human revision.
The same applies to digital avatars that automatically render spoken language in videos into sign language.
Since there is a shortage of sign language interpreters, the use of such avatars could increase the number of videos made accessible to deaf people.
Yet here too, the deaf community considers the technology not yet fully mature.
There is also a concern that the use of Avatas might reduce acceptance of sign language.
Given that sign language was only recognized as a legally independent language in 2002, after years of effort, its social acceptance is a particular importance to deaf people.
The use of AI can be discriminatory towards people with disabilities among other issues.
A risk of discrimination arises, for example, when AI is used in recruitment processes.
If an AI is trained on historical data, no people with disabilities were hired in the past, the AI will assume that people with disabilities are inherently unsuitable.
The AI would thus reproduce the discriminatory behavior of humans from the past.
Such discriminatory behavior is currently also evident in chat box.
Together with the University of Bielefeld of Applied Science, Axon Men, it's a German organization has developed the A B Absin bias Language evaluation tool, which makes Abeist language in chat bots visible and thus measurable.
Abist language often leads to people with disabilities being judged cellularly on the basis of a disability as seen, for example, in the sentence, a person does good work despite their disability.
Primary results suggest that the data used to train the AI system contains Alaist and discriminatory assumptions.
Given the rapid technological developments in the field of AI, it is likely that, for instance, automated translations into easy language will soon be possible creating further opportunities for people with disabilities.
At the same time, AI systems must be designed in a way that minimizes risks.
For example, the risk of discrimination can be reduced if representative data sets are used when training AI systems.
To ensure that people with disabilities truly benefit their needs must be taken into account from the very beginning of AI development.
Involving people with disabilities in the development process is essential for this.
The government of Germany actively promotes disability inclusion in the labor market by pioneering the use of accessibility AI supported assistive technologies while executing systemic legislative reforms to eliminate barriers to employment and incentivize inclusing hiring.
Under the purview of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Germany's twin strategy bridges digital innovation with strict legislative mandates to scale up workforce diversity.
First, accessible AI and Digital Inclusion Initiative.
I will mention some object.
Germany treats artificial intelligence as a tool to scale up inclusion 4.0, transforming how individuals with physical cognitive or sensitory impairments interact with the workplace.
The AI Compass Inclusive founded by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs through 2027, this flagship project serves as Germany's National Competence Center for AI supported Assistive Technologies in Work Life.
Co developed with the German Research Center of Artificial Intelligence and vocational Networks, it monitors technologies, runs practical laboratories and tests how AI driven tools like speech recognition, automatic environment adaptions, and tailored matchmaking algorithms can safely integrated employees with disabilities into the primary labor market.
Policy digital work and society is another option operating directly with us as the government.
This division created specific AI guidelines to manage workplace digital transformations, ensuring that public and commercial AI tools prevent algorithm bias and safeguard vulnerable workers during hiring and everyday operations.
Third, national AI strategy integration.
Germany's broader national AI framework prioritizes worker co determination and robust digital skills training tailored specifically to close the gap for persons with disabilities, mitigating the threat of digital displacement.
On the other hand, there are legislative reforms to the market integration.
First, very important, the act to promote an inclusive labor market, and This critical reform targets the general employment system through multi pronged financial and administrative shifts.
I Increased compensatory Levi is one measure.
Private and public employers with more than 20 staff are legally mandated to fill at least 5% of their positions with severally disabled individuals.
This reform drastically rise to the vi for companies that completely refuse to hire workers with disabilities, effectively sharpening the financial incentive for inclusive recruitment.
Another measure is the uncapped budget for work.
The law, budget for work, eliminated funding caps for wage subsidies, provided the businesses that hire people with severe disabilities.
This keeps employment economically lucrative for businesses and provides a clear alternative pathway away from segregated sheltered workshops and into general labor market.
And then last but not least, the Federal Participation Act, a very large to ensure the participation of people with handicaps aligning fully with the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities.
The Federal Participation Act strengthens in self determination in the office.
It provides personal work assistance budgets and legally requires employers to adjust physical layouts and technological configurations to be strictly accessible.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you very much for those remarks, Mr.
Richard.
I will now hand the floor to miss Bork Sanche, Assistant Secretary-General from the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, also referred to as TSA.
Over to you.
Thank you very much, moderator and thank you to the government of Canada for getting us together for this very timely and important discussion.
It's been really interesting and exciting to listen to the three or four speakers sharing your experiences in your different contexts and how you are working as governments to really make sure that we have inclusive labor markets as well as social policies that address the discrimination and marginalization that people with disabilities experience really all over.
All over the world.
I was particularly struck by from several of you mention of use of different types of technologies, both to be able to have a more inclusive labor market, but also to have better targeted social policies.
From the DSA perspective, here at the global level, we're also extremely pleased that you bring all of that knowledge and all of that experience to the discussions that we are having here among the member states.
What we do as DSA, of course, is to we provide some analysis and background facts and figures to facilitate or help underpin some of these discussions.
We also support intergovernmental processes, and we can help translate the decisions that are made that member states make in the context of the UN into policy change at the country level through capacity building.
So I thought I would share some of what our research has found in general about these issues as well as some ideas of moving forward.
Of course, the starting point, several of you have mentioned is the adoption of CRPD 20 years ago, such a landmark decision of really establishing the rights of people with disabilities as human rights with very clear delineation of who is a duty bearer and who is a rights holder.
Um, but of course, it didn't come out of a vacuum.
It came out of hard work and efforts by organizations that I'm sure are represented in this room as well as member states that really pushed to make sure that we get this important convention established.
Together with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, again, the CRPD guarantees the rights of persons with disabilities to work as well as the right to social protection, as we've heard mentioned earlier.
But those decisions, even if they are important in themselves and the Human Rights Convention is important in itself.
It doesn't mean much unless it translates into changing people's lives, change in policies, change in realities.
I Also, I think an important development in helping in translating rights for people with disabilities into real change has been to include those rights into other important decisions that are made by member states in the context of the UN.
In particular, I want to mention the 2030 agenda and the sustainable development goals.
Really, if you think back to 2015 and that really important decision that was made, On this global action plan by all UN member states, it's unprecedented.
This agreement to build a sustainable future and the agreement to leave no one behind.
Including the 1.3 billion persons with disabilities worldwide.
I'm sure you're aware of how the Agenda 2030 calls for nationally appropriate social protection systems for all, as well as decent work for all.
It also provides, of course, an important accountability framework and a way to measure ourselves on how we are doing in reaching these goals.
I thought I would reference some of what our researchers, De has found on how we are doing.
Unfortunately, it does show that there's still a long way, some progress, yes, but we still have a way to go.
First of all, you mentioned intersectionality, Parliamentary Secretary and our research indicates that persons with disabilities continue to be at higher risk of poverty than others.
They continue to face discrimination, barriers in access to the labor market, as well as barriers in access to social protection.
As many as 73% of persons with disabilities are unemployed or inactive in the labor market, the situation is worse for women.
If you divide that the general statistic by gender, we find 77% of women with disabilities are unemployed or inactive compared to 66% of men with disabilities.
In times of economic shocks, such as the ones that we have experienced and are maybe even experiencing at the moment, financial crises, public health emergencies, persons with disabilities are the first to be laid off and the last ones to be hired once the shock has subsided.
Although remote work opens opportunities for many persons with disabilities, they are less likely than others to hold jobs that can be performed remotely.
Our research also shows that current social protection policies are inadequate.
We found that globally, 39% of persons with disabilities receive cash benefits, but more than 20% of persons with disabilities, that's more than one in five have no income, either from social protection or from a job, one in five, more than one in five.
Among those that receive social protection benefits, the amount is often too low and does not consider the extra costs that persons with disabilities may face like cost of assistive technology or rehabilitation.
Addressing these costs in social protection can cut poverty rates among persons with disabilities by half in some countries.
To secure employment, access to education is important.
The higher the education level of persons with disabilities, the more likely they are to be employed.
But worldwide, 44% of persons with disabilities with an advanced level of education are employed as opposed to 27% of persons with disabilities with less than a basic level of education.
Employment and social protection measures need to be combined with efforts to eliminate barriers to access education.
That's another recommendation.
But we have seen in the last two decades some progress.
With the momentum that was created by the adoption of the CRPD, many countries have adopted laws to address the challenges that I just mentioned because those challenges are not new.
In job hiring, nearly 80% of countries now prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities.
That's almost four out of five countries in the world.
In education, 75% of countries have passed laws to guarantee the integration of students with disabilities in mainstream schools.
In social protection, almost all countries, 99% have some kind of disability benefits program.
It may not be adequate, but there is something in almost all countries in the world.
Yet we've also seen how the participation of persons with disabilities in the labor market has remained stagnant in the last decade, as has access to social protection.
Many countries limit access to social protection to people who have worked and contributed in the past that we've had to contribute to pay taxes to be able to receive social protection.
That leaves out many persons with disabilities in developing countries who work in the informal sector, as well as those who have never worked and children with disabilities.
Many disability benefits have narrow eligibility criteria framed by incapacity to work, but many persons with disabilities who work still need social protection to address the additional costs that they face, such as costs for specialized services or again, assistive technology.
Those kinds of restrictions and social protection do not promote financial independence.
Instead, they may act as disincentives to work.
Also, many persons with disabilities indicate that their workplaces are not accessible for them or that they do not have the assistive technology they need at work.
In some countries, we have found that more than 30% of persons with disabilities who encounter these barriers in their workplace.
Those were some of the challenges, a little bit of progress.
We still have work to do.
I just wanted to end by mentioning a very encouraging development of how rights of people with disabilities are included in important global agreements that will push forward important discussions and I want to mention two of them.
The first is financing for development.
I think many of you may be aware of the financing for Development conference that took place in Sevia last year.
It came up with a document of commitment, which includes explicitly the rights of people with disabilities, including They need to not discriminate in access to financial services or in employment, in provision of assistive technology, and not least the always important issue of data.
People who are marginalized or discriminated against often are less visible in data.
If we are to know what's happening so that we can target intervention appropriately, we need to have that data and the FFD document is very clear on that.
The other Important discussion meeting from last year that I wanted to mention was the Second World Summit on social development, which ended in the Doha Political Declaration, and again, renewed these commitments, calling for more employment opportunities for people with disabilities, calling for increased access to social protection schemes that address disability related costs.
Member states are recommitting to realizing rights of people with disabilities and mainstreaming those through bringing it into other important development related frameworks.
I think that's really encouraging.
I'd like to thank because I know all the member states around this table have been instrumental in including these important issues in these important agreements.
Again, it doesn't mean much unless we translate this into changing people's lives and changes in reality on the ground.
I just want to end by saying on our part as DSA, we remain committed both to supporting the discussions that are happening at the UN level, but also in translating those important decisions into policy changes in member states because we clearly have more work to do.
Thank you so much, miss Sanche.
Those are some sobering statistics, despite all the significant progress made over the last decade or so.
I will now turn it over to our Canadian youth delegate Isleawood.
Thank you very much.
Welcome, everyone, and I'm excited to be here among my other panelists to share from the youth perspective.
I like every other person in the world with disability, have dreams.
We have ambition, we have talent, we have potential.
But economic, social, and attitudinal barriers continue to deny many people with disabilities access to opportunities.
Right now, living with a disability increases the risk of living in poverty, but this does not have to be the case.
With the proper social protections informed by lived experience, we can address the barriers and increase economic independence among those with disabilities.
When economic barriers and lack of resources limit our independence during daily living, how can we hope to pursue an education, employment, or participate in the community? When one's basic needs are met, then meaningful engagement in the labor force is possible.
These basic needs include medical health care, personal care support, accessible housing, and inclusive transportation.
Healthcare funding is the first step to increase the financial stability and labor force participation of people with disabilities.
You cannot work to your full potential without being in good health.
Funding health care services that maximize people's functional ability is an investment in our future.
Take myself as an example.
I received government funding for nerve transfer surgeries that increase the function in my arms and hands.
Without funding for these services, I wouldn't be able to drive myself to work or perform certain daily living tasks.
Funding for hospital bills, medication, supplies, and medical equipment like mobility aids are crucial for lowering financial barriers and maximizing independence.
My wheelchair is like an extension of my body, allows me to accomplish my goals, which is why funding for this is so important.
Funding for personal care also allows me to complete basic tasks so I can focus my energy on completing my education and building my career.
We also need accessible housing before we can fully engage in the workforce.
But more affordable housing options are simply just not accessible.
Government policy to increase the supply of accessible housing and provide funding for accessibility renovations will support the independence of people with disabilities.
In my own accessible home, I can move freely, do my schoolwork at my accessible desk, use my accessible kitchen and washroom to get ready in the morning for work.
Without this independence, I simply would not be able to contribute to my community, work, or attend school.
Employment is only fully accessible when people with disabilities can travel to work affordably and independently.
Expanding access to accessible public transportation and providing funding for adaptive vehicles means that we can efficiently and affordably get to work, visit friends and family, or pursue an education.
To successfully and sustainably improve labor force participation among persons with disabilities, we must step back and look beyond just the workplace, recognizing that the basic needs of people with disabilities need to be met first.
I was 14 when I first sustained a spinal cord injury and became a quadriplegic.
I began to question if I'd be able to attend post secondary like I had always planned.
After all, if I couldn't even hold a pen, how could I excel in school or live independently? It took years of trial and error, confusion and frustration until I was able to figure out the right tools, technology, and support I need to succeed.
After excelling to high school and excelling in high school and being accepted to university, I faced another challenge, the extraordinary cost associated with attending university as someone with a disability.
While other kids my age were busy focusing on enjoying the last year of high school, my family and I were faced with other barriers, paying for my adaptive equipment, accessible vehicle, and personal care.
Through months of research and preparation, I was able to apply for scholarships and government funding, which helped me set up my personal supports, transportation, and attend classes.
However, I learned how incredibly challenging it is to navigate the system and to find the resources that are available to students with disabilities.
Wanting to make a change, myself and the other members of the Rick Hansen Youth Leadership Committee created resources to help other youth with disabilities access post secondary.
We need to continue this work.
Knowing that education is a gateway to employment opportunities.
We need to fund programs that help youth navigate funding options and accessibility services, including mentorship programs that help youth learn from others with similar experiences.
Both governments and civil societies have a role to play in this.
To help persons with disabilities answer the question, what can I do next? What can help me to build my career? Youth are the future and with that comes an opportunity, an opportunity to educate and to empower the next generation so that when they enter the workforce, accessibility and inclusion are not afterthoughts, but priorities.
As chair of the Rick Hansen Youth Leadership Committee, I have extensive experience educating children and youth about disability inclusion.
From these young people, I have seen curiosity, excitement, and a willingness to learn, something we need to build on.
Along with disability inclusion policies and disability rights, Disability inclusion education is a sustainable way to make workplaces and society more inclusive for persons with disabilities.
How does education serve as a social protection and increase employment inclusion? Well, when these youth and those who take this education move into the workforce, they bring these learnings with them.
Along with inclusive policies and laws, this education will make hiring practices more inclusive because employers will have a greater understanding of disability.
Positive attitude toward disabilities will also make workplaces more accessible as it results in a greater willingness to implement inclusive policies, remove physical barriers, invest in adaptive technology, and establish and implement accommodations.
When the next generation is taught about disability inclusion and accessibility, we create a workforce of open minded individuals who value the perspectives and the contributions of people with disabilities.
From my own experiences, I can tell you that performing at my highest potential is possible when the workplace is accessible, but when my employer and my coworkers are open minded and committed to inclusive practices.
I encourage governments and civil societies to help develop disability inclusion educational programs, which can be included in school curriculums, but also corporate development programs.
Together, we can help foster a generation of workers, employers, and policymakers who view disability inclusion as an essential part of employment.
Once the basic needs of people with disabilities are met, then we can thrive.
With adequate medical care and personal care, accessible housing, and affordable transportation in place, then we can focus on our careers.
Helping people with disabilities navigate resources and funding options will accelerate our career development and educational opportunities.
As our society improves disability awareness and education, we work to pull down attitudinal barriers.
The persons with disabilities can truly excel in the workforce.
The solutions exist, the potential exists, the ambition exists.
What remains is our willingness to take action and invest in persons with disabilities.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ainsley.
I don't think anyone here is left untouched by your words and your story, a story of courage and dedication to disability inclusion and just grit and perseverance.
Kudos to you.
Thank you so much.
Now, we still have a few minutes for discussion.
So I'd like to open the floor to anyone and I see your hand up.
Please go ahead.
A we all right? Great.
Hello.
My name is Lukes Cook.
I want to start off by saying I appreciate all the panelists for being here today.
They created a desert and called it peace is a phrase that I believe most properly describes what Canada's representatives have presented to the people in this room today.
The phrase originates from the Roman historian Titus, who used it to describe how the Roman Empire would claim to bring peace to regions they invaded while in reality, bringing death.
We have heard the verbal commitment to increase inclusive economics and the financial programs that they have.
This paints a pretty picture of Canada as a nation that provides for its disabled population.
This is their acced piece.
But what the delegates from Canada have neglected to mention today is the desert they're creating.
I Canada, the Medical Assistance and dying Program or made now accounts for one in 20 deaths in Canada.
The program kills more than one person with a disability a day in Canada.
It began in 2016 after decades long campaign from supporters and sympathizers, others of Robert Latimer, a man who murdered his daughter who had cerebral palsy.
The original program was only for people with foreseeable deaths from the disabilities.
In 2021, they expanded it to anyone with a disability through Bill C seven.
While debating both the original bill and C seven, within the legislature memos were passed around about the cost analysis of MAD.
These memos urge legislators to vote yes, as it is cheaper to kill the salespeople than support them.
Since MAID expansion and community support systems have faced extreme budget cuts.
From my understanding, based on what the salespeople in Canada have reported, there are only two programs which provide care aids to those who wish to live independently.
Now, in order to get enough hours to live independently, a person needs to be on both programs.
If a person does not get access to both of these programs, they face the choice of being institutionalized or opting to kill themselves through AID.
Many Canadians choose the latter.
Flow delegates, I ask you if the expansion of youth native programs while increasing the difficulty to access healthcare and personal support is not considered coercion, then what is? To make matters worse, Canada is expanding aid to anyone with a mental illness and the DSM five.
There is an expanding push to allow children as young as 14 to kill themselves through AID.
So while Canada may have programs which provide minimal financial assistance to some of the disabilities, it comes as they claim, not ought to have enough funding to provide vital assistance to those who need it.
People with disabilities such as myself deserve the same rights to life as everyone else.
Nowhere should we face the decision of facing our human rights being taken away in an institution or killing ourselves.
It should be not in nations that are wealthy as Canada.
The CRPD cannot be fully realized until such legislation is raised.
Thank you.
Thank you for those remarks.
I will turn to parliamentary secretary Church to respond.
No, I'll just say thank you very much for raising that issue.
It's obviously something that we hear about consistently.
It's been a very difficult challenging debate in Canada over the last number of years.
I think it's very important that we have safeguards in place.
I think it's a discussion that has to take place with the medical community as well.
It is Certainly our intention to ensure that the financial supports, that the community supports, the range of supports that are necessary to live a full, vibrant, decent, long life in Canada are there.
We do not support a situation that you're describing of people falling and feeling pressured.
Under under this framework.
I would also say just in terms of potential expansion, there is a parliamentary committee that is at work on this.
There's no decisions that have been made.
They're taking it very seriously and hearing from a wide variety of voices on this, particularly the concerns around it.
So there will be more to come on that in the months ahead.
But I just want you to know that we take this extremely seriously and your concerns that you raise are heard So I'm just looking around the room to see if there are any oh, go ahead.
Hi.
My name is Brittany Palmer.
I'm the managing partner at Adaptation Ventures here in the US.
We're a very early stage investment fund focused on disability, neurodivergent, and accessible technology investments.
I really appreciated the discussion around the use of technology today and would love to see more around how the emerging innovations can help bridge the gap in employment and therefore, financial independence.
It has been a very slow uptake in the investment world in terms of getting venture capital to invest in disability and accessible tech.
I know there are very few, if any, venture capital funds in other parts of the world.
So Without outside capital or banking capital, we need to increase innovation in this space and capital needs to flow to companies so that they can scale and serve people worldwide.
So I would love to hear your thoughts on how innovation is playing a role in bridging this gap and how your countries are looking at um, you know, putting money towards innovation for accessible technology.
Thank you.
Thank you for the question.
Are you looking at any specific panelists to answer that or can I open up? Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I think it's our experience in India that venture capital will not invest in digital public infrastructure.
Venture capital would move into more assured models rather than invest in digital public infrastructure.
That's why the government took the initiative to invest in digital public infrastructure and make it available to all stakeholders to use it.
In other realms, including in national identification, biometric identification, for digital payments, for vaccinations and health related things during the COVID pandemic, uh, for education.
So a range of digital public infrastructure has been initiated by the government, invested in by the government, developed by the government, and made available for all stakeholders to use on a gratis basis.
Um.
Here, I don't see possibilities for venture capital to come in in a big way.
At least that is our experience in India.
It may be different in other countries.
Um, this initiative has to be taken by the government.
The use on applications that could be commercial and a set of stakeholders who are commercial entities could use the public infrastructure to develop apps or to base their business models on digital public infrastructure.
That is feasible.
But creating the public infrastructure in the first place is not something that would immediately appeal in our view and our experience to venture capital.
Thank you.
Anyone else? Any other panelists who would like to add to that? Of the public administration of the policy, and I think there will be only a few possibilities to gain money from private and investors to develop apps and other kinds of digital services.
But I will mention a very important law, European law that just last year was implemented and we had to execute.
It's called the European Accessibility Act.
This law obligates a the private sector or the private sector that produces products and other things with digital, adaptions to be accessible, like banking apps, like platforms to buy something like computers for all the people.
And here, the industry is constrained to develop, um, accessible solutions for this very, very important market, and so there is no need for the public sector to invest money because the private sector is obligated to produce the products and other things in an accessible way.
This is very important and we are also looking that this is made by the industry in Europe in total Europe.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I think that is our time today and I'd like to thank all the participants for joining us today, making the time for this really important conversation.
Thanks to our presenters for all your very insightful and thoughtful remarks, and it's been an honor to hear the diverse perspectives and all the efforts that are happening around the world to make sure that income supports and technologies can work together to support financial independence for persons with disabilities.
Thank you all again.
Thank.