The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) seeks to promote, protect and ensure equitable access to all human rights and fundamental freedoms by PWDs. Besides, Sustainable Development Goals 1.3 monitors the proportion of a population covered by social protection systems (pension schemes). However, the indicator does not specifically make provision for the monitoring and implementation of pension schemes for PWDs.
Barriers to disability-inclusive schemes related to the wider environment
According to the United Nations Promoting Inclusion through Social Protection Report on the World Social Situation 2018, the overall coverage of disability benefits is very low in developing countries, nonetheless, several middle-income countries have successfully put in place broad-based disability schemes with high levels of coverage. The report further underscores that a key barrier to accessing disability benefits is the assessment process: potential beneficiaries which are often assessed on purely medical grounds, and inability to work is often used as the threshold to qualify for benefits. Unfortunately, little consideration is given to the social factors that may disadvantage PWDs beyond their impairment. Furthermore, while existing disability benefits can help individuals and households to meet their basic needs, they are far from covering the economic cost of disability-related expenses and remaining out of the labor force. What is more, there is little data on the access of PWDs to disability-specific and mainstream pension schemes.
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