The Global Disability Summit 2025 is a global platform dedicated to advancing the rights of people with disabilities. It takes place in Berlin on 2-3 April, co-hosted by Inclusive Futures partner, the International Disability Alliance, and the governments of Germany and Jordan.

Despite widespread global commitments and frameworks to promote disability inclusion, it remains an under-prioritised and under-resourced issue. The Global Disability Summit, launched in 2017, and held every four years, aims to address this.

The summit brings together governments, multilateral agencies, donors, the private sector and civil society to promote the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and ensure disability inclusion is central to international development and humanitarian responses.

Johannes Trimmel, Inclusive Futures programme director for disability-inclusive development said: “The summit comes at a crucial moment as recent changes to global development funding threaten to undo years of progress towards reducing poverty and inequality. We now have the opportunity to remind the global community of the commitments they’ve made – and what still needs to be done – to make sure persons with disabilities are not left behind again, and get the education, health care and jobs they need to lead fulfilling lives and meaningfully contribute to their communities, economies and societies.”

By offering a platform for stakeholders and actors to make formal, actionable commitments towards advancing disability inclusion, the summit aims to drive forward change for millions of people with disabilities living in low and middle income countries. These commitments – whether financial, policy-driven or programmatic – are tangible actions aimed at fulfilling the CRPD and the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Inclusive Futures at the Global Disability Summit: how you can get involved

Members of the Inclusive Futures consortium will feature across the two-day series of events. This will include hosting a side event with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on Inclusive Futures’ flagship new report, Driving change: six principles for inclusive development. Based on six years’ of practical experience from multiple partners, the principles are designed to offer development actors practical guidance on how to implement disability inclusion.

Visit our Inclusive Futures booth

• Location: A4, Hall 3

Since 2018, Inclusive Futures has helped to transform the lives of nearly 3.4 million people with disabilities and reached more than 15.5 million others through our work on education, healthcare and livelihoods, and tackling stigma and discrimination.

In the five countries where we work, there are now more children with disabilities learning at school, more entrepreneurs with disabilities earning a living, and more people with accessing the health care they need, and living their lives free from discrimination. This is what inclusion looks like.

Visit us at our booth to connect with our consortium and OPD partners, learn more about our programme insights – such as our six principles for inclusive development – and access memorable stories with our collection of postcards and videos.

You can also pledge your support to future generations by signing our open letter on inclusive education and be part of the movement for change.

Together, we can close the gap, target inequality and build a more equal world!

Attend our panel event: Closing the gap – six principles to achieve inclusive development

• Date and time: 2 April 2025, 10.30-11.30am
• Location: Hall 4.2

Inclusive Futures has created six guiding principles for inclusive development, based on extensive practical learning from working with people with disabilities and OPDs to drive transformative change that has reached millions of people across Africa and Asia. Our panel will discuss how donors, governments, NGOs and activists alike can adopt and scale up the six principles in their efforts to achieve the bold goals of the 2025 Global Disability Summit.

Moderated by senior BBC reporter, Paul Carter, our panel event will be introduced by Sir Stephen Timms, minister for social security and disability for the UK government. It will include prominent voices from the African disability rights movement who are involved in Inclusive Futures, such as Lois Auta, CEO of the Network of Women with Disabilities in Nigeria and Esther Mkamori, head of programmes at United Disabled Persons of Kenya.

The speakers will feature alongside Johannes Trimmel, Inclusive Futures programme director at Sightsavers, Jose Viera, interim executive director of the International Disability Alliance, and Diana Dalton, deputy director for gender, equalities and rights at FCDO.