Persons with disabilities across Asia and the Pacific continue to face systemic barriers to full and equal participation in economic life, including employment, entrepreneurship, and market access. While there has been growing recognition of disability inclusion within policy discussions, business practice and development cooperation, progress remains uneven across the region. In many countries, opportunities remain limited in formal employment pathways, entrepreneurship, procurement and the broader value chains. Various regional dialogues ESCAP has convened in recent years have underscored the need to adopt a more inclusive understanding of disability-inclusive economic empowerment. It encompasses not only access to formal employment, but also informal work, community-level entrepreneurship, accessible products and services, inclusive innovation, value chains, and investment frameworks. Action in some Asia-Pacific countries have also emerged to foster collective and scalable investment in economic empowerment of persons with disabilities: embedding disability inclusion within stock exchanges’ investor empowerment frameworks and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), promoting inclusive procurement, co-designing policies and standards with OPDs, improving disability-inclusive data and monitoring systems in the economic sector, as well as innovative financing and impact investment schemes for disability inclusion.
Building on the Jakarta Declaration on the Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities, 2023-2032, this Regional Forum is being convened as part of ESCAP’s broader initiative on the economic empowerment of persons with disabilities. The forum will provide a platform to consolidate good practices appropriate to different labour market and economic contexts, take stock of lessons learned, exchange experiences in multi-stakeholder collaboration, and identify practical and strategic pathways to advance economic empowerment of persons with disabilities. The Forum will bring together key stakeholders – policy makers, OPDs, private-sector leaders, critical development partners - leading policy development, private sector action, and impact investment for disability inclusion, with a view to strengthening action-oriented collaboration and broadening the partnership landscape. Ultimately, the Forum will aim to foster a shared understanding of “what” and “how” about economic empowerment of persons with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific.