United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities
The International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) – December 3rd each year – has been promoted by the United Nations since 1992. The purpose is to advance understanding of disability issues and mobilize support for the dignity, rights, and well-being of persons with disabilities around the world.
The official theme of this year’s IDPD is: United in action to rescue and achieve the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities.

As themes go, it may not be the most memorable, but there are good reasons to support it.
What are the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)?
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, are 17 interlinked objectives adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity. (UNDP.org)
1) No poverty, 2) Zero hunger, 3) Good health and well-being, 4) Quality Education, 5) Gender equality, 6)Clean water and sanitation, 7) Affordable and clean energy, 8) Decent work and economic growth, 9) Industry, innovation, and infrastructure, 10) Reduced inequalities, 11) Sustainable cities and economies, 12) Responsible consumption and production, 13) Climate action, 14) Life below water, 15) Life on land, 16) Peace, justice, and strong institutions, 17) Partnership for the goals
While the SDGs are not legally binding, governments are expected to take ownership and establish national frameworks for the achievement of each goal. It is a way to measure progress and document setbacks.
For persons with disabilities around the world, the goals are a source of leverage – a framework to hold governments and other actors to account. This leverage is doubly important today.
Given the multiple crises of today’s world, achievement of the SDGs is in peril. At the mid-point of the implementation period for the 2030 Agenda, the world is not on track to reach numerous SDGs targets by 2030. For many, progress has either stalled or regressed below the 2015 baseline. Unfortunately, the world’s poorest and most vulnerable are often the hardest hit in times of crisis. Preliminary findings from the forthcoming UN Disability and Development Report 2023 indicate that the world is even more off track in meeting several SDGs for persons with disabilities. Our efforts to rescue the SDGs for, with and by persons with disabilities need to be intensified and accelerated, given that persons with disabilities have historically been marginalized and have often been among those left furthest behind.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Disability is specifically mentioned 11 times in the official descriptions of the SDGs. Here are some of the SDGs with direct bearing for people living with disabilities where Realize is taking action:
Goal 1) No Poverty – People living with disabilities (including episodic disabilities) are more likely to live in poverty than non-disabled people. They face barriers in accessing education, employment and social services that can directly affect their livelihoods and the livelihoods of their families.
What is Realize doing? (selected)
- United (or collective) action is key to addressing the systemic barriers to inclusion people with disabilities experience and that can lead to poverty. Realize is the convening organization for the Episodic Disabilities Forum — a pan-Canadian forum comprising people with living experience, national disability organizations, federal policy-makers, and researchers focussed on policy and practice changes addressing these barriers.
- In 2019, after years of education and advocacy by Realize and our partners, for the first time ever episodic disabilities were included in the definition of disabilities contained in Federal legislation – when the Accessible Canada Act received Royal Assent.
- In June 2023, the Canada Disability Benefit Act became law providing the framework for a new Canada Disability Benefit. This benefit is being created to reduce poverty and support the financial security of working-age people with disabilities. United actions by Realize and many others across the disability sector have helped pave the way for these changes.
Goal 3) Good Health and Well-Being – People living with disabilities can often face specific barriers to accessing healthcare and may have specific health needs.
What is Realize doing? (selected)
- Systemic ableism has been flagged as a barrier to HIV and Hepatitis C prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in Canada, with serious consequences. Through our Canadian HIV and Disability Project, Realize is taking the lead in mapping existing HIV resources and services across the country that are tailored for people living with disabilities, identifying gaps in supports, and forging linkages across the HIV and Disability sectors to enable appropriate referrals, testing and treatment.
Goal 4) Quality Education – Disabled people can often face barriers to accessing education, including in relation to physical, attitudinal, and institutional barriers.
What is Realize doing? (selected)
- Our FINESSED course (Fostering INclusion and Environments of Support for Students with Episodic Disabilities) provides academic staff and leaders in the post-secondary education sector with knowledge and strategies to help make teaching more accessible and inclusive to students living with episodic disabilities.
Goal 8) Decent Work and Economic Growth – Disabled people can sometimes face discrimination in the workplace and may at times have limited access to employment opportunities.
What is Realize doing? (selected)
- Realize hosts the annual National Summit on Episodic Disabilities and Employment. This free, virtual event is a ground-breaking gathering that highlights research, tools, and approaches to creating inclusion and accessibility, and accommodation best-practices for those living and working with episodic disabilities. This past March, the 3rd Annual Summit drew over 500 people from every region of Canada with significant representation from human resource professionals, business owners and managers, civil servants, leaders from the not for profit and educational sectors as well as people with lived experience navigating episodic disabilities at work. Registration for the 2024 Summit – Moving Knowledge to Action – is now open.
- Realize offers a suite of online courses (additional courses are coming on line soon, and others will soon be available in French) designed to help human resource professionals, business leaders, managers and people living with episodic disabilities create more inclusive and accommodating workplaces.
- Realize runs Episodic Disability at Work training workshops for workplaces, professional groups, and associations. Using the IDEAL Framework of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Leading to belonging framework, this popular 2-hour Zoom workshop provides an overview of episodic disabilities, information that promotes inclusion and best practices for becoming disability-confident employers.
- Our project Canada’s Museums: Putting the ‘A’ (Accessibility) in IDEAL, has been approved forfunding over the next three years by Employment and Social Development Canada. The focus of this project is to improve the representation of persons with long term and episodic disabilities among senior, middle, and other managers, supervisors as well as administrative and senior clerical personnel positions in Canada’s national museums.
Goal 10) Reduced Inequalities – Disabled people face discrimination in various forms and may be excluded from social, economic, and political life.
What is Realize doing? (Selected)
- Working with 12 diverse disability-serving organizations across Canada, Realize has been conducting IDEAL Community Research. (IDEAL – Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Leading to belonging – is a guiding principle in all of our work). The aim of this research is to shed light on the intersectional experiences of distinct identities within the disability community and what that means when it comes to countering ableism in the workplace. Our research partners serve people living with disabilities in the Black, Indigenous, 2SLGBTQI+, Seniors, Students, Asian, South Asian, and Muslim communities across Canada. This research findings will be released publicly in the new year.