This article is written by Eric G Zhang, Social Affairs Officer, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

  • The problem: Widespread barriers and lack of accessibility in built environments, products and services, transportation, and information and communication technologies.
  • Why it matters: A lack of accessibility greatly impedes progress in honouring international human rights obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and negatively impacts the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
  • The solution: Actively promote accessibility as an imperative in human rights and socio-economic development policies, strategies and efforts to fill the gaps between international commitments and national development policy and practices on the ground.

Environments can impede or enable, perpetuating exclusion or fostering participation and inclusion of all members of society. Yet, for the world’s over one billion persons with disabilities, physical and virtual environments too often remain unfriendly, and sometimes even serve to exclude. This is due to widespread barriers and lack of accessibility in built environments, products and services, transportation and information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Globally, while many member states of the United Nations have increasingly recognised the importance of environmental accessibility in the context of key normative frameworks concerning human rights and development, huge gaps remain between the international commitments and national development policy and practices on the ground for ensuring accessibility in physical and virtual environments.

Accessibility needs to be actively promoted as a human right and development imperative.

It’s important to note that under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is ratified by 185 countries and the European Union, state parties are obliged to take measures for advancing accessibility to equalise opportunities for persons with disabilities and empowering them to “live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life”. Furthermore, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development pledges leaving no one behind, and the midpoint of the timeline for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) just elapsed.

Progress in promoting accessibility needs to be accelerated as a development and human rights imperative.

Governments and public servants have unique opportunities, abilities and important roles to play in this by translating those high-level commitments into national development policy interventions to promote accessibility.

Available international experiences suggest that many concrete actions can be pursued and solutions be sought to fill the gaps between policy and practice, which can eventually make a difference in the lived experience of persons with disabilities in achieving accessibility. For example:

  • Adopt and implement national accessibility policies and regulations, such as those on ICTs accessibility that can build a foundation for ICT accessibility of virtual environments.
  • Establish and apply accessibility standards, for instance in housing and transportation sectors, to provide practical benchmarks for all actors involved to follow and for monitoring and assessing the progress of the accessibility implementation.
  • Mainstream accessibility in socio-economic development strategies, programmes and activities, and promote universal design by undertaking or supporting research and development of universally designed goods, services, equipment and facilities. These often require only minimal possible adaptations and costs to meet the needs of users with and without disabilities, while also helping to increase their availability and use on the market. This can be done through measures such as industry policy regulation, public procurement and where appropriate, support for research and development of accessible products and services, such as ICT technologies, assistive devices and open-source software in the industries.
  • Strengthen institutions and their capacities. For instance, governments can identify and assign dedicated focal points in relevant line ministries dealing with accessibility issues to coordinate and oversee the development of policies and actions, in collaboration with other national bodies, for monitoring progress towards accessibility, organising public campaigns and coordinating data collection activities.
  • Engage and build partnerships among key stakeholders so that governments, the public and private sectors, academia and persons with disabilities and their representative organisations, can collaborate and contribute in identifying gaps, solving problems and mobilising resources for accessibility.
  • Develop and publish data on accessibility, for instance, those on ICT accessibility and access to and use of ICTs disaggregated by disability which the SDG target 9.c requires but is still missing in many countries. Government and public servants are major players in this area. A systematic collection of data, a clear methodology for comparison, regular data evaluation and a publicly available platform to showcase to interested parties are strongly recommended for a successful analysis of the state of the 2030 Agenda in terms of accessibility.

Finally, a key message to take away. Accessibility needs to be actively promoted as a human right and development imperative. Governments and public servants can play a key role in further raising the awareness among officials, development professionals and the general public, to appreciate and embrace accessibility as a “public good”, because accessibility applying universal design has proved to be a more inclusive and affordable solution, with its benefits going far beyond definite groups of users with varying abilities or disabilities of all ages. Accessible environments, products and services benefit all in a society, because they are non-excludable and non-rivalrous – use by one person does not detract from use by others.

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