Leave No One Behind in Denmark

The report identifies indicators of the status and development of the UN Global Goals for people with disabilities — and basically qualifies the work with the Danish monitoring of the UN World Goals and the cross-cutting principle Leave No One Behind in the field of disability.

Together we are stronger

With our commitment to the UN's Global Goals, Denmark has agreed that we will not leave anyone behind in sustainable development and that we will also”reach the furthest behind first”. In 2020, the Bevica Foundation's Universal Design Hub partnered with VIVE — the National Research and Analysis Centre for Welfare. The aim was to develop a documentation base for the status of inclusion of people with disabilities in sustainable development.

A panel of experts has been associated with the project, with representatives from the United Nations Association, Statistics Denmark, Danish Disability Organisations, the Central Council on Disability, the Institute for Human Rights and the Knowledge Centre on Disability. Together, these actors have contributed qualified knowledge and commented on papers for the study in the initial and final stages of the project.

The good collaboration has now culminated with Vive's recent progress report. A report that basically helps us in Denmark to achieve our goal of keeping our promise not to leave anyone behind in sustainable development.

Conclusions and recommendations

Overall, VIVE's report concludes that people with disabilities and disabilities are not represented in the existing monitoring of the UN's Global Goals.

The under-representation is reflected in the fact that the group of people with disabilities is only relatively limited and explicitly included in the UN's objectives, milestones, declarations of intent and indicators (9 out of 169). The same applies to the additional 197 national Danish measurement points, none of which explicitly addresses people with disabilities and disabilities.

At the same time, the report points out that there is currently virtually no data to implement the monitoring of the SDGs for people with disabilities and disabilities.

VIVE recommends two possible actions in this regard. The first step is to include more existing data in the future national monitoring of the SDGs for people with disabilities and disabilities. The second approach is to use several types of available data and analyses, such as surveys and qualitative studies, that contribute to knowledge about the status and development of people with disabilities.

These recommendations for action are further underpinned by the fact that the UN itself explicitly opens up and acknowledges the use of both qualitative and quantitative data in the monitoring of the SDGs and the cross-cutting principle of Leave No One Behind:

Het, a. (UN, 2019 p. 16).

Time for reflection and action

As the VIVE report concludes, the recommended actions of the report give rise to a fundamental need for reflection in defining and differentiating between groups of people with disabilities and disabilities, as well as a need to define a strategy to provide necessary registry data on target groups and target areas.

In other words, we need to become more aware of the high complexity attached to both defining disabilities and differentiating target groups, as well as defining the most relevant targets for these very audiences, if we are to increase the representation of people with disabilities and disabilities in the existing monitoring of the UN's global goals — and, above all, keep our pledge to the UN not to leave anyone behind in sustainable development.

Read the report at VIVE

https://www.vive.dk/da/udgivelser/fn-s-verdensmaal-og-udviklingen-paa-handicapomraadet-i-danmark-18939/

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