In launching the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy in June 2019, the Secretary-General stated that the United Nations should lead by example and raise the Organization's standards and performance in this area across all pillars of its work, from Headquarters to the field. This Strategy lays the foundation for progress and transformation across all key areas of the Organization's work: peace and security, human rights, and development. Ensuring the rights of persons with disabilities brings us closer to the fundamental values and principles of the United Nations Charter. This Strategy also enables the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other human rights instruments, as well as the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Agenda for Humanity, and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.

The Strategy encompasses both policies and an accountability framework. Benchmarks have also been established to assess and accelerate progress in the inclusion of persons with disabilities. It further defines the Organization's vision and declares its commitment in this area.

To achieve the inclusion of persons with disabilities, the Strategy is based on three overarching approaches:

Twin-track approach: On one hand, the mainstreaming of persons with disabilities is a cross-cutting issue that must be present in all of the Organization's actions. On the other hand, inclusion requires specific measures.

Intersectionality: Other factors, such as gender, age, place of residence, etc., influence the lives of persons with disabilities.

Coordination: A coordinated and coherent approach is essential to accelerating progress, learning from past experiences, and achieving the goal of inclusion.

The four main areas of the Strategy concern:

Leadership and institutional arrangements: Collaboration with management to promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities; strategic planning that takes these individuals into account; development of specific policies and strategies for inclusion; formation of teams or individuals with knowledge and experience in this field.

Inclusivity and engagement: Consultation with and involvement of persons with disabilities, or involvement of organizations representing them, in all activities; ensuring full accessibility of all buildings and facilities, information and communications, conferences and events, through specific measures, equipment, and services.

Programming and results: Inclusive programming for persons with disabilities through practical guidance both at Headquarters and in the field; development of joint initiatives to unite efforts and accelerate progress; evaluation to monitor progress.

Organizational culture and employment: Implementation of internal systems to attract, recruit, retain, and promote persons with disabilities; training of the Organization's staff on the inclusion of persons with disabilities; dissemination and promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities and raising public awareness of their inclusion.

To monitor progress, the Secretary-General submits an annual report to the General Assembly. This report includes recommendations to strengthen system-wide efforts and outlines concrete steps to support Member States in their implementation.

Since 2019, the reports have demonstrated how the United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy has guided the Organization's efforts to make disability inclusion a system-wide priority. This year's report shows significant progress in implementation: 85 entities and 132 country teams now submit annual progress reports.

Based on six years of implementation, the report reflects progress made in advancing disability inclusion between 2019 and 2024, celebrates achievements, and highlights priorities for accelerating system-wide change. Recommendations aimed at institutionalizing and adequately and sustainably resourcing disability inclusion across the United Nations system will guide the next phase of the Strategy, with a view to further enhancing its impact by setting higher standards and inspiring transformative system-wide progress.

The Monitoring System

Implementation of the Strategy is supported by two accountability frameworks: one for United Nations entities and one for country teams. The frameworks consist of 15 indicators for entities and 14 for country teams, distributed across four core areas: leadership, inclusivity, programming, and organizational culture. Entities and country teams annually self-assess their progress on a four-level scale, ranging from not meeting requirements to exceeding them. The disability inclusion team in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General reviews and validates all reports, ensuring consistency and providing corrective recommendations.

From 2019 to 2024, the number of reporting entities grew from 57 to 85, while all 132 country teams have reported annually since 2021. This increase reflects greater awareness and strengthened commitment from senior leadership.

Progress Across the Four Core Areas

Area 1 — Leadership and Institutional Arrangements: This is the area showing the most significant progress. The percentage of entities meeting or exceeding leadership requirements rose from 16 to 52 percent between 2019 and 2024; that relating to strategic planning from 18 to 43 percent; specific disability policies from 10 to 54 percent; and institutional arrangements from 23 to 66 percent. The Secretary-General's personal commitment has set the tone, and where senior leaders have actively championed disability inclusion, lasting organizational momentum has been generated. At the country level, more than two thirds of Resident Coordinators now include disability inclusion as a standing agenda item in country team meetings. Countries such as Brazil, Ghana, Guatemala, and Serbia have used Cooperation Frameworks as a strategic tool to institutionalize the rights of persons with disabilities. Gaps remain, however, in translating commitments into measurable indicators and concrete results.

Area 2 — Inclusivity and Engagement: This remains the most challenging area. Although the percentage of entities consulting organizations of persons with disabilities has grown from 11 to 48 percent, most entities continue to do so in a very specific manner and rarely extend consultations to topics not directly related to disability. On the accessibility front, some funds and programmes have taken significant steps — such as the United Nations Children's Fund, which established a technical assistance service for accessibility, and the United Nations Population Fund, which included a dedicated budget line in all investment projects — but within the Secretariat, progress remains limited by financial constraints and poor coordination. The launch in 2023 of the Secretariat's Reasonable Accommodation Guidelines represented an important step forward.

Area 3 — Programming and Results: Approximately one third of entities now mainstream disability inclusion into their country programming documents. Tools such as the International Labour Organization's disability inclusion marker and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations' guidelines represent best-practice examples of systematic mainstreaming. Just over half of entities combine targeted projects with disability mainstreaming in broader thematic initiatives. However, many initiatives remain project-based and temporary in nature, with limited long-term impact. Disability-disaggregated data remains insufficient: only one in ten country teams has mainstreamed disability inclusion into most of their capacity development activities for national statistics offices.

Area 4 — Organizational Culture and Employment: Despite progress in formal policies — nearly all entities now have a strategy to attract and retain staff with disabilities, and non-discrimination statements in job announcements have tripled since 2020 — the actual impact on employment is minimal. Only 2 percent of entities have recorded an actual increase in staff with disabilities, and only 17 percent report comparable levels of satisfaction and well-being between staff with and without disabilities. Cultural barriers, stigma, and privacy concerns discourage self-identification, hindering the monitoring of progress and the creation of a truly inclusive environment.

The Seven Recommendations

The report sets out seven priority recommendations:

1.      Accessibility: Mainstream accessibility into planning, budgeting, and operational systems, expand common services, and establish partnerships with host governments to improve the accessibility of shared buildings.

2.      Consultation: Make the engagement of organizations of persons with disabilities a systematic and standard feature across all consultation and coordination mechanisms, ensuring representation of underrepresented groups and accessibility of events.

3.      Employment: Mainstream disability inclusion across all phases of the employment cycle, ensure adequately funded reasonable accommodations, conduct regular well-being surveys for staff with disabilities, and include the promotion of disability inclusion in managers' performance assessments.

4.      Knowledge management: Develop mandatory learning programmes for senior leaders, create a common toolkit and repository of good practices, strengthen system-wide communities of practice, and provide specialized training for operational staff.

5.      Data: Prioritize the collection and analysis of high-quality data on persons with disabilities, strengthen the mainstreaming of disability into monitoring and evaluation systems, and invest in capacity development for national statistics offices.

6.      Institutional coordination: Establish a permanent monitoring and coordination mechanism, equipped with sustainable and predictable resources, with a United Nations advisory group and a dedicated secretariat capable of supporting system-wide implementation, strengthening inter-agency focal points, and ensuring annual reporting by all entities.

7.      Efficiency and investment: Direct efficiency gains from the UN80 Initiative towards the implementation of the Strategy and the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities at the global, regional, and national levels, aligning efforts with the Sustainable Development Goals, the Pact for the Future, and existing initiatives to expand disability inclusion in an efficient and sustainable manner.

Concluding Remarks

In its first six years, the Strategy has demonstrated that, when leadership, resources, and collaboration are aligned, the United Nations system is capable of producing tangible change. However, progress remains uneven: where enabling factors are absent, inclusion risks being reduced to isolated initiatives rather than translating into systemic transformation. To consolidate and build on the results achieved, it is necessary to move from fragmented approaches to systematic standards and practices, applied consistently across the entire system.

The vision emerging from the report is clear: disability inclusion must become "everyone's business," not a responsibility confined to a few focal points or targeted programmes. Persons with disabilities must be recognized as colleagues, leaders, agents of change, and co-creators of a more equitable future. The global context — marked by the climate crisis, protracted conflicts, shrinking civic space, and declining development aid — makes this transformation urgent, as persons with disabilities are among those most affected by these challenges.

The recommendations contained in the report, together with those of the independent evaluation conducted in 2025, constitute a concrete roadmap for the next phase of the Strategy, with the goal of ensuring that no person with a disability is left behind by 2030.