The National Vice President of the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD), Ms Sirina Mahamadu, has called on world leaders to speed up action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ensure they are inclusive of people with disabilities. She said front-runners must ensure that political declaration and national commitments made at the recent United Nations SDG Summit 'focus on reaching those who are being left furthest behind'. Ms Mahamadu made the call when GFD presented a petition to the Chief Director of the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection in Accra, demanding 'action to protect the rights of people with disabilities'. Some 48,063 individuals from 121 nations, including 14,178 signatures from Ghana, signed the 'Promise in Peril' petition initiated by GFD and Sightsavers. They include the disability movement, persons with disabilities, Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs), Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and the public. The 'Equal World' campaign urges world leaders to keep the SDG promise of leaving no-one behind and ensure disability is specifically addressed in discussions on the SDGs. The SDG Summit, which took place in New York from September 18-19, 2023, sought to make new commitments and assess progress on the global goals, which are said to be going 'off-track'. According to David Agyeman, Senior Programmes Manager of Sightsavers, people with disabilities were being hit hardest by the ''lack of progress on poverty and inequality'' adding that 'the promise to leave no-one behind is in peril.' The call followed a United Nations (UN) report, which shows that the SDGs cannot be achieved unless urgent action is taken to include marginalised groups, including people with disabilities. World leaders at the recent Summit issued a political declaration warning that the world is nowhere close to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set in 2015.

Source: Ghana News Agency