UN-Habitat and the World Blind Union sign a milestone agreement to work together to make cities accessible for all

The UN agency focused on urban issues, UN-Habitat, and the World Blind Union (WBU) which represents over 250 million blind and partially sighted people, are joining forces to improve disability inclusion, universal design and accessibility in cities, towns and communities.

Nearly one billion persons with disabilities are expected to be living in urban areas by 2050, putting huge pressure on national and local governments to fulfil their obligations in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) to ensure buildings, services and public spaces are inclusive and accessible to all.

UN-Habitat and WBU signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with joint commitments to accelerate UN-Habitat’s work towards mainstreaming disability inclusion, universal design and accessibility within its strategies, policies, programmes and operations in line with the New Urban Agenda, the 2030 Agenda, and the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy.

UN-Habitat and the World Blind Union expressed confidence that the partnership would transform the global agendas into tangible practices in the Decade of Action and foster alignment of UN-Habitat with the UNCRPD and UN Disability Inclusion Strategy.

Mr. Rafael Tuts, UN-Habitat’s Director of Global Solutions called the MoU a milestone.

“UN-Habitat’s Strategic Plan 2020-2023 has an increased emphasis on human rights, and for the first time explicitly highlights persons with disabilities as a vulnerable population within the plan’s cross-cutting and social dimension, necessitating mainstreaming of disability inclusion throughout the UN-Habitat’s operations.”

Original source: UN-Habitat
Published on 03 February 2020