The central, transformative pledge of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ‘leave no one behind’ cannot be achieved without the inclusion of the estimated one billion people around the world living today with a disability. Their heightened vulnerability to multidimensional poverty is compounded by many barriers they face in their daily lives, including a lack of accessibility in physical and virtual environments, stigma and discrimination, a lack of access to energy, assistive technologies, and rehabilitation, and a lack of measures designed to promote independent living. Unless these barriers are dismantled, persons with disabilities will remain disproportionately excluded from full participation in economic, social, cultural, civic, and political life, undermining the realisation of their rights, and the achievement of the SDGs.
