A closer look at Global Disability Summit health commitments
In April 2025, the third Global Disability Summit (GDS) will be held in Berlin, co-hosted by the governments of Germany and Jordan as well as the International Disability Alliance. While GDS has evolved into a more extensive initiative, extending far beyond its initial scope as a two-day conference, the two Summits to date have provided a strong platform to amplify the voices of and focus on persons with disabilities. GDS has inspired close to 200 organisations to make commitments to strengthen disability inclusion in global development and humanitarian action and contribute to disability justice.
Inclusive health was a new thematic area of focus for the GDS at GDS2022 and health was not explicitly addressed at GDS2018. By encouraging discussions about and commitments to health equity, GDS2022 helped to strengthen the focus on disability inclusion in global health. Health equity and access to quality, safe and affordable healthcare are critical concerns for persons with disabilities of all ages. Persons with disabilities need the same general healthcare services as everyone else, but persons with disabilities still experience discrimination and exclusion. Health information is inaccessible, barriers in the built environment still exist, and negative and/or ableist attitudes persist among healthcare professionals.
GDS2025 will continue the previous Summit’s focus on inclusive health, providing an opportunity to build upon the successes of GDS2022 and deliver new, measurable and ambitious commitments to strengthen health equity.
Number of GDS2022 commitments on health
At GDS2022, 83 organisations made 185 commitments focused on health (accounting for 13% of all 1,412 GDS2022 commitments).
Organisations that submit commitments are grouped under nine categories on the GDS Secretariat’s online portal of commitments: Civil Society Organisations, national governments, OPDs, donors, multilateral organisations, foundations, private organisations, local authorities, and a miscellaneous “others” category. That said, both the category ‘donor’ and ‘national governments’ include bilateral aid agencies so are aggregated for this analysis.
National governments/ donors made the highest number of commitments (n.71) on health at GDS2022, followed by Civil Society Organisations (n.57) and multilateral organisations (n.22).
What are the commitments about?
The GDS Secretariat’s online portal of commitments divides the 185 commitments on health into 10 ‘key themes’. The parameters for what commitments are included in any one the key themes is unclear, particularly for the key themes ‘Universal Health Coverage’ and ‘Health Systems Strengthening’; both appear to include commitments that touch upon other key themes, including data and financing. Of the 10 key themes, ‘health systems strengthening’ accounts for the highest number of commitments (n.29), followed by ‘strengthening the health workforce’ (n.28).
In total, 170 of the 185 commitments have been categorised using one of the 10 key themes; the remaining 15 commitments are categorised as ‘other’ (some ‘other’ commitments touch upon separate key themes, including health emergency preparedness and response).
Reflecting on the summit commitments
Some of the key themes for health commitments from GDS2022 reflect or overlap with the 10 strategic entry points in the Global Report on Health Equity for Persons with Disabilities . The GDS2022 key themes ‘strengthening the health workforce’, ‘OPD engagement’, ‘mobilising resources’, ‘data’ and ‘normative frameworks’ broadly reflect the following strategic entry points, respectively: ‘health and care workforce’; ‘engagement of communities and other stakeholders’; ‘health financing’; ‘monitoring and evaluation’; ‘political commitment, leadership and governance’. The key theme from GDS2022 ‘health emergency preparedness and response’ also overlaps with the strategic entry point ‘models of care’. The remaining strategic entry points were not a focus at GDS2022: ‘physical infrastructure’; ‘digital technologies for health’; ‘systems for improving quality of care’; ‘health policy and systems research’.
There appears to be a lack of commitments from private organisations and local authorities in health at GDS2022, underscoring the need to widen the type of stakeholders contributing to health equity.
Looking more deeply at the number and nature of GDS2022 commitment on health, there also appears to be a lack of engagement from bilateral donors; of the 185 commitments on health at GDS2022 six were made by five bilateral donors. SIDA’s commitment pointed to core support it already provided to HelpAge to promote healthy ageing; DFAT committed to strengthening disability inclusion across its health security programming; JICA pointed to projects it already funds in Senegal to expand community health insurance coverage; USAID (by 2026) committed to support the development of the World Rehabilitation Alliance; the FCDO committed to extend the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health programme to address barriers which prevent people with disabilities realising their full sexual and reproductive health and rights and to strengthen the disability focus of the ‘What Works to Prevent Violence: Impact at Scale’ programme.
Considerations for health commitments at GDS2025
GDS2025 presents an opportunity to encourage all relevant stakeholder groups to formulate quality, evidence-based and impactful commitments. The Global report on health equity for persons with disabilities provides a framework for commitments on health at GDS2025; to ensure commitments made are aligned with strategic entry points proven to be critical to health equity. The list below provides an indicative list of possible commitments on health for all relevant stakeholder groups.
Civil Society Organisations:
Commit to routinely conducting disability analysis in the design and delivery of mainstream health programmes, to ensure programme activities focus on health equity for persons with disabilities.
Commit to utilising evidence and data to share and scale-up emerging and best practices to strengthen disability inclusion in the health sector.
Commit to advocacy activities focused on strengthening health equity for persons with disabilities, including shaping national plans and strategies.
National governments and local authorities:
Commit to developing and resourcing an action plan for disability inclusion in the health sector, incorporating strategic priorities into health strategies or plans (including preparedness and response plans for health emergencies).
Commit to appointing a permanent focal point or committee in the Ministry of Health to coordinate and monitor disability inclusion in the health sector; that meaningfully engages persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in policymaking and governance decision making processes.
Commit to developing/ strengthening standards and/ or regulations on disability inclusion for health service providers and manufacturers of health products; subsequently monitoring their implementation.
Commit to integrate indicators for disability inclusion (reflecting the diversity of persons with disabilities) into the monitoring and evaluation frameworks of country health systems.
Commit to ensuring disability inclusion training is routinely delivered to all medical and non-medical health staff at regular intervals.
Organizations of Persons with Disabilities:
Commit to documenting experiences of persons with different disabilities in accessing health services, to inform policy reform on addressing health inequities.
Commit to documenting and sharing experiences of models of care, quality of care protocols and disability-inclusive feedback mechanisms associated with direct service delivery.
Commit to support training of medical and non-medical health staff on disability inclusion.
Donors (including Foundations):
Commit specific funding to address health inequities for persons with disabilities, including resourcing action plans and strategies and funding health policy and systems research on disability inclusion.
Commit to strengthening the focus on disability inclusion in broader health systems strengthening and disease-specific investments.
Commit to setting funding criteria to ensure disability inclusion is routinely considered in all health funding proposals and subsequent investments.
Commit to resourcing OPDs, enabling them to contribute to efforts to strengthen health equity for persons with disabilities.
Multilateral Organizations:
Commit to joint programmes prioritizing health equity for persons with disabilities.
Commit to routinely conducting disability analysis in the design and delivery of joint health programmes, to ensure programme activities contribute to health equity for persons with disabilities.
Commit to specific activities to strengthen national-level capacity to deliver and monitor health equity for persons with disabilities.
Commit using convening power(s) to meaningfully engage persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in in health-related activities and initiatives.
Private Sector (including Private Health Providers):
Commit to implementing national standards regarding quality of care for persons with disabilities.
Commit to adopting international accessibility standards and guidance to make health products (including telehealth, digital health, medical products, diagnostics, etc.) accessible to and inclusive of persons with disabilities.
Commit to include in operational budgets the costs of making facilities and services accessible and providing training on disability inclusion to all staff.
Commit to protecting the employment rights of persons with disabilities in the private health sector (including through respecting a quota of employees with disabilities, implementing mechanisms to ensure access to reasonable accommodations, equitable career development opportunities, and health and employment benefits for employees with disabilities).
Academia/Researchers:
Commit to conducting national health policy and systems research on disability inclusion.
Commit to routinely collecting and analysing disability data in all health-related research.
Commit to engaging persons with disabilities and their representative organisations in all health-related research.
Commit to ensuring that persons with disabilities are not excluded from randomised controlled trials and other health-related research activities due to their disability status
Commit to disability-inclusive employment and recruitment to increase diversity among health researchers and academic personnel.
Commit to establishing ethical standards and protocols for engaging persons with disabilities in health-related research, in their capacity as research participants and researchers
To strengthen accountability for GDS2025 commitments on health equity, help strengthen momentum and share learning all relevant stakeholder groups that make commitments on health equity could convene at key events following GDS2025 (e.g., COSP 2026) to review progress and identify further opportunities for collaboration.