WHO 72nd Regional Committee for Europe - EU Statement: Item 5 – European framework for action to achieve the highest attainable standard of health for persons with disabilities 2022–2030

EU Statement

Honourable chair,

Distinguished Director General, Regional Director

Excellencies,

Colleagues,

I have the honour of speaking on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.

The EU and its Members States welcome the Resolution on the WHO European Framework for Action to Achieve the Highest Attainable Standard of Health for Persons with Disabilities 2022–2030.

This resolution is a timely understanding of the size of the population of persons with disabilities where 135 million people in the WHO European Region living with some form of disability. COVID.19 has and continues to disproportionately affect people with disabilities. We know that European Programme of work 2020-25 United Action for Better Health in Europe cannot be realised unless the rights of persons with disabilities are explicitly taken into consideration and addressed.

Following the adoption of the Seventy Fourth World Health Assembly Resolution on achieving the highest attainable standard of health for persons with disabilities, there is now a unique opportunity for the European region to grasp the momentum and truly achieving disability inclusion in the health sector.  We must recognize that disability inclusion is is a broadly multi-sectoral issue, and intrinsic to overcome the three biggest worldwide challenges to health and well-being through the life course: achieving universal health coverage (UHC); ensuring that public health interventions are effective; and protecting people from health emergencies.  The health sector can lead the way to disability inclusive societies.

EU and it MS welcomes the Frameworks’ vision of a disability-inclusive health sector by 2030 that is based on the core principles of equity, people focused and data enabled. We call for development of disability-inclusive policies that are based on reliable disability –disaggregated data on healthcare access and utilization all of which should be underpinned by robust governance and leadership capability in each MS.

In accordance with the UNCRPD, we stress the importance of providing people with disabilities or their organisations the opportunity to participate in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of disability-inclusive policies in a range of capacities, including leading, creating, implementing, and/or supervising such policies. Health services and all related information must be inclusive and accessible for all persons with disabilities.

We call for strong partnerships between organizations of persons with disabilities, Member States, WGO/Europe, academia national and international organisations at the sub-regional and national levels.

We call for strong political commitment to implement the framework at national levels with WHO providing technical support to Member States in the development of national disability action plans, sharing examples of best practice from across the region.  We welcome the detailed list of recommended actions for MS, WHO Secretariat and other key stakeholders and highlight the need for the availability of funding mechanisms to enable full implementation of the Resolution.

We welcome alignment with the four Flagship initiatives of the EPW, Pan-European Mental Health Coalition, Empowerment through Digital Health, European Immunization Agenda 2030 and Healthier behaviours incorporating behavioural and cultural insights ensuing that disability is fully considered and incorporated

We call for a robust monitoring and evaluation framework that will facilitate tracking of progress and to hold respective stakeholders to account in achieving Highest Attainable Standard of Health for Persons with Disabilities within the European Region. We look forward to a report to the Regional Committee through a midterm report at the RC 76th session (2026) and a final report at the RC’s  80th session (2030).

Thank you