National Consultation: National Programme for Social Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities 2024-2027

Thank you for the opportunity to join you today for this consultation process.

I would like to appreciate the efforts and the progress that the government has made over the years in the field of respecting, protecting and fulfilling the human rights of persons with disabilities, by adhering to international human rights standards, development of the legal framework, as well as implementing programmes that facilitate the process of social inclusion of persons with disabilities.

The National SDG Progress Report published in September highlights the commitment of the Republic of Moldova to ensure adequate social protection for persons with disabilities. However, it is also important to ensure disability inclusion also includes increased accessibility to public services and that programmes are in place to ensure increased social cohesion and inclusion in communities.

I would like to also highlight the very important role and support of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities and CSOs for contributing to ensuring an improved quality of life, as well as supporting the development and piloting of services that facilitate the process of social inclusion of persons with disabilities. Alongside government, civil society has an exceptionally important role to play and I am happy to see so many organisations here today.

Moldova ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2010. However, there remains a lot of work to do to transform the conventions goals into concrete policies, systems, programmes and services that uphold the rights of persons with disabilities.

At the United Nations we are working hard to ensure that our programmes address disability and inclusion and this remains a priority.  Six UN agencies in Moldova joined efforts to support the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection in this important exercise of developing, in an inclusive and participatory approach, the new program on social inclusion of persons with disabilities for the period 2024 - 2028.

On the eve of International Day on People with Disabilities, I would like to emphasise that this day is good opportunity for all of us to remind ourselves that achieving of the 2030 Agenda and the SDG’s is possible only if all of us apply the promise to leave no one behind, including those 168,000 persons with disabilities from the Republic of Moldova, as well as the roughly 10% of persons with disabilities among the refugees from Ukraine.

It is important to focus on needs and rights of persons with disabilities, not as beneficiaries, but as active contributors in social, economic, political and cultural rights. Which I hope this new national programme will achieve.