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2025 Global Disability Summit : Cameroonians Seek Greater Government Commitment

Par Kimeng Hilton
03 avril 2025 11:54
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Running from April 2-23, 2-25 in Germany, the gathering offers a unique global mechanism to improve the lives of persons with disabilities, especially from the Global South

The International Disability Alliance, IDA, the Government of Germany, and the Government of Jordan, are hosting the third Global Disability Summit, GDS in Berlin, Germany from April 2-3, 2025. The Global Disability Summit was created in 2017 to convene global, regional, and national stakeholders that share the same goal and vision for disability inclusive development and humanitarian action.

Cameroon Actively Participating
As the horse-trading continues amongst delegates from across the world on this year’s summit dividends, Cameroon is not left out of the global discourse. Prior to the 2025 Global Disability Summit, the Cameroon government organized a workshop at which its commitments for the event were finalized.

Inclusive Development, Humanitarian Action
The workshop stressed that the summit was an opportunity to advance the rights of persons with disabilities by securing commitments from governments. This year’s GDS builds on previous summits in 2018 and 2022, which brought together global, regional, and national stakeholders to promote inclusive development and humanitarian action, workshop participants recalled. It is essential that the summit goes beyond a simple two-day event and lead to lasting change, they expressed hope.

Engaging Cameroon Government
Meanwhile, Cameroon’s delegates had as objectives to engage their government with Organizations of People with Disabilities, OPDs to demonstrate leadership at the 2025 GDS. Review progress on government commitments made during the last GDS. And support OPDs and the government in developing a commitment monitoring plan for the 2025 SMH.

Post-summit Expectations
Rising from the summit, it is expected that progress be made in implementing government commitments for the 2025 HMS. Government will identify its commitments for the 2025 HMS.
A working group will be created to monitor government commitments for the 2025 HMS. And Cameroon’s government’s commitment to the 2025 HMS will be validated, based on priorities identified by the OPDs and government stakeholders.

Expected Summit Deliverables
To serve as deliverables from the 2025 Global Disability Summit in Germany will be the list of government commitments for the 2025 HMS, strategies to highlight Cameroon's contribution, and the list of recommendations to improve the monitoring of government commitments.

Sightsavers’ Advocacy
As the 2025 Global Disability Summit rounds off in Germany on April 3, 2025, the international disability and humanitarian charity, Sightsavers, took advantage of the opportunity to call for a number of actions to be taken by summit participants. They include stronger commitments to ensure equal access to education, healthcare, and social protection; co-develop commitments with disabled people's organizations. And build on past commitments to ensure long-term impact.

Accountability, Increased Funding
The second action is clear accountability by using national and international systems to track progress; ensure disabled people's organizations are central to monitoring efforts. And establish a robust and well-funded monitoring framework. The third was increased funding through governments integrating disability-inclusive budgets; donors increasing disability-inclusive funding and track progress. And climate change financing being fully inclusive of people with disabilities.
In summary, Sightsavers called for stronger commitments, clear accountability and increased funding to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in education, healthcare, social protection and finance.

What Are They?
Global Disability Summits aim to bridge the gap between two arenas that are still separate - disability inclusion and development cooperation. The Global Disability Summit is a mechanism that goes beyond a two-day summit every three years. It is a mechanism that entails continuous advocacy with global disability development stakeholders and mobilization of the disability rights movement and its allies. Importantly, it is a partnership between member states and Organizations of Persons with Disabilities, embodied in the way that co-hosting arrangements are made.

Their Objectives
The objective of the summit is to build and expand the momentum of the previous two GDS summits, by amplifying its impact in advancing the rights and inclusion of all persons with disabilities through international cooperation. To do this, several key messages were identified by the co-hosts to determine the most cutting-edge and innovative approach for the GDS 2025: