WHO has launched the WHO Disability Health Equity Initiative, a landmark global initiative to advance health equity for over 1.3 billion people with disabilities.Unveiled on 10 June 2025, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York during the 18th session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the initiative marks a bold step toward achieving health equity for all. The initiative aims to guide governments, health institutions, and communities in addressing barriers to care, promoting inclusive policies, and strengthening data and research on disability and health. Over 150 participants—government leaders, civil society, academia, and persons with disabilities—gathered in person, while many more joined online.Darryl Barrett, WHO’s Technical Lead on Disability presented a bold vision for the initiative. He discussed persistent systemic failures – political inaction, underinvestment, fragmented collaboration, and the exclusion of organizations of persons with disabilities – as critical barriers to progress. “Health systems are not fit-for-purpose,” Barrett said. “If we agree on Health for All, then we must agree that services must be inclusive and accessible. Right now, we can’t say that with confidence.”The Initiative is built around four strategic pillars:Leadership by persons with disabilities and their organizationsPolitical prioritization of disability-inclusive healthInclusive health systems and service deliveryStrengthening data and evidenceBarrett also outlined how this new initiative will facilitate strategic engagement with key partners to advance health equity for persons with disabilities, including through a multi-stakeholder network, partnerships with the private sector, technical guidance development, and support for country-level implementation. He emphasized that WHO’s work has been shaped by years of collaboration with diverse partners, including organizations of persons with disabilities. “We at WHO haven’t done this by ourselves,” Barrett noted. “The strong presence of partners – both in the room and online – reflects the shared commitment needed to drive meaningful, lasting change.”David Duncan, Special Olympics athlete and Chair of the Global Athlete Leadership Council, delivered a powerful testimony about the discrimination people with intellectual and developmental conditions often face in health care. “Invisible, unknown, disrespected... but I know it’s possible to do better – and that’s something everyone deserves,” Duncan said.Norway’s Minister of Culture and Equality, Lubna Jaffery, issued a powerful call to action, urging governments to close health access gaps and uphold the rights of persons with disabilities. Emphasizing access to health services, reproductive autonomy for women with disabilities, and expanded availability of assistive products, Jaffery affirmed Norway’s leadership in disability-inclusive development. “Inclusion is not just a policy, it is a principle and we are committed to making it a reality for all.”Sweden’s Director-General of the Agency for Participation, Malin Ekman-Aldén, echoed this commitment, stressing that advancing health equity for persons with disabilities is a human rights imperative. She highlighted Sweden’s continued investments in inclusive development and welcomed the WHO initiative as a key driver of accountability, better data, and systemic change.Dirk Platzen, Director at Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, underscored the need for political leadership in building inclusive health systems. Introducing Australia’s new International Disability Equity and Rights Strategy, he called for recognition of health as a fundamental human right, not a privilege.Representing Germany, Michael Schloms of the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development emphasized international collaboration, sustainable financing, and shared responsibility. Reflecting on Germany’s experience hosting global disability events and co-leading the Global Disability Summit, he reaffirmed support for the initiative and the Amman-Berlin Declaration.Speakers from civil society, funding agencies, and academia highlighted the importance of funding, civil society engagement, and academic research in sustaining momentum and ensuring accountability. Ola Abualghaib, Director of the Global Disability Fund, emphasized the Fund Strategy’s alignment with the new WHO initiative. Hannah Loryman, Co-Chair of the International Disability and Development Consortium UN Task Force, stressed the vital role of civil society in advocacy, technical input, and accountability. Bonnielin Swenor, Director of the Disability Health Research Center at Johns Hopkins University, highlighted academia’s responsibility to advance disability health equity through inclusive research, education, and community engagement. She called for a paradigm shift from “living with a disability” to “thriving with a disability,” driven by data and implementation science.This initiative offers a pathway to making better choices - choices that ensure dignity, autonomy, and the right to health for all persons with disabilities.Jarrod Clyne / Deputy Director of the International Disability AllianceAudience members raised critical issues including the need for sustainable health system funding in humanitarian crises, the inclusion of Deaf people and persons with a psychosocial condition, the importance of training health professionals, digital health acccessibility, and support for independent living – highlighting the diverse and intersectional challenges that must be addressed to achieve true health equity for persons with disabilities.Jarrod Clyne, Deputy Executive Director of the International Disability Alliance, closed the event by stressing the importance of persistence, partnership, and shared responsibility. “This initiative offers a pathway to making better choices – choices that ensure dignity, autonomy, and the right to health for all persons with disabilities,” he said.

A new project at Code for America aims to help state and local governments make their documents more accessible in time for a 2026 deadline.

GovTech's guide to digital accessibility and inclusive design. Explore examples of inclusive design and how we foster digital inclusion in Singapore.

All digital Xbox games are getting accessibility tags from Microsoft to tell you what features to expect.

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhua) -- Millions of people living with disabilities have seen their lives improve as China made major strides in accessibility, inclusion and...

UNDRR, in partnership with ATscale, has led a global study on inclusive disaster risk reduction and climate action for AT users. The findings have informed the development of a draft policy brief, now available for public consultation.

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On 5 June 2025, a Special Session titled “Digital Inclusion and AI Ethics: Building Human-Centered Digital Futures” brought together global experts to explore the intersection of artificial

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Technology continues to break barriers, offering people with disabilities more independence, accessibility, and quality of life. In 2025, assistive technology…

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Dates to be confirmedGATE Summit 2025, initially scheduled for 7-8 May has been postponed. Hosted by WHO under the GATE Initiative and in collaboration with UNICEF, the Summit will bring together key stakeholders to highlight and prioritize global, regional, and national actions needed to accelerate equitable access to assistive technology.PurposeThe GATE Summit will build on progress in the sector with the overall goal of collaboration within and between sectors and partners to achieve a consensus-driven Global roadmap for priority investment and action to accelerate equitable access to assistive technology. BackgroundThe WHO and UNICEF Global report on assistive technology identifies that 2.5 billion people globally need assistive technology, growing to 3.5 billion by 2050. Equitable access to assistive technology enables better health outcomes, and realization of human rights, and facilitates collective and inclusive achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.  Despite the need and benefits, there is significant global inequity of access to quality, affordable assistive products and services needed to ensure they match a person’s needs. Household surveys conducted for the Global report found that in some low-income countries,  as few as 3% of people have the assistive products they need; and more than 67% of people accessed their products through shops through out-of-pocket payments. The report also highlights the surge in need during the humanitarian crisis, magnified by a lack of preparedness to respond. The 2018 World Health Assembly Resolution (71.8) on assistive technology, followed by the Global report in 2022 and other global initiatives, has increased awareness and interest in assistive technology as a key issue within health, education, labour, humanitarian, and other sectors. Progress has been made towards closing the gaps in access, including increasingly comprehensive global guidance and country-level actions. However, the pace of progress, in particular for low- and middle-income countries, remains slow in contrast to the growing need. There also remains a lack of understanding amongst decision-makers and advocates on how to achieve effective access for diverse groups of service users across varied contexts and on the potential of emerging opportunities such as digital health technology.  ObjectivesHeighten awareness of the need for assistive technology and build shared knowledge of strategies to improve access considering the themes of who, where, and how, through presenting evidence-based information and best practice examples of national, regional, and global initiatives.Broaden the network of stakeholders across sectors and levels that are actively engaged in taking action to increase access to assistive technology, through using a hybrid approach and ensuring at least 40% of in-person participants are attending a GATE Summit for the first time.Strengthen partnership and collaboration on assistive technology between Member States, UN, civil society and other key stakeholders, by providing an open forum for sharing ideas and opportunities. Reach consensus on a Global road map for accelerating access to assistive technology.Summit detailsDates: To be confirmedVenue: WHO headquarters, Geneva, SwitzerlandWorking language: English Interpretation for GATE Summit Plenary: Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, SpanishFormat: HybridParticipationGATE Summit 2025 will draw together government representatives; WHO, UNICEF, and other UN Agency personnel; assistive technology service user advocates and their representative bodies including organizations of persons with disabilities, older persons, and others; assistive technology service providers and their representative associations; researchers; educators; development partners; donors; and innovators.In-person attendance will be through invitation only.Remote participation will be open to all through approved registration. Registration links will be added here.Related documentsWHO and UNICEF Global report on assistive technologyWorld Health Assembly Resolution on Assistive Technology

Tactile graphics are essential for providing access to visual information for the 43 million people globally living with vision loss. Traditional methods for creating these graphics are labor-intensive and cannot meet growing demand. We introduce TactileNet, the first comprehensive dataset and AI-driven framework for generating embossing-ready 2D tactile templates using text-to-image Stable Diffusion (SD) models. By integrating Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA) and DreamBooth, our method fine-tunes SD models to produce high-fidelity, guideline-compliant graphics while reducing computational costs. Quantitative evaluations with tactile experts show 92.86% adherence to accessibility standards. Structural fidelity analysis revealed near-human design similarity, with an SSIM of 0.538 between generated graphics and expert-designed tactile images. Notably, our method preserves object silhouettes better than human designs (SSIM = 0.259 vs. 0.215 for binary masks), addressing a key limitation of manual tactile abstraction. The framework scales to 32,000 images (7,050 high-quality) across 66 classes, with prompt editing enabling customizable outputs (e.g., adding or removing details). By automating the 2D template generation step-compatible with standard embossing workflows-TactileNet accelerates production while preserving design flexibility. This work demonstrates how AI can augment (not replace) human expertise to bridge the accessibility gap in education and beyond. Code, data, and models will be publicly released to foster further research.

Mysuru: In a first for Karnataka, JSS Science and Technology University (JSS STU) will launch an exclusive BE computer science and technology programm.