Since 1992, December 3rd has been recognized as the International Day for Persons with Disabilities. It is important to recognize the voices of the hundreds of millions of people with disabilities who are burdened by the political and social forces in their native land. At the same time, we must identify ways to leverage the technological breakthroughs that have revolutionized our world and find ways to allow this technology to become a key driver toward expanding opportunity and independence for the more than one billion people worldwide with a disability.
According to the WorldBank, 80% of people with a disability across the globe live in a developing region. Furthermore, 46% of adults over age 60 and one out of every ten children also have a disability. These numbers tell a compelling story about the social and economic impact in emerging regions worldwide. While efforts like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) have carved a path forward for countries to secure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities, particularly those from more vulnerable populations, there needs to be more than the goodwill and assurances of equal protections from political leaders to combat the inequality that exists for people with disabilities.
The good news, however, is that the digital revolution that has grown up around the CRPD offers us a significant return on our investment when it comes to breaking down barriers to opportunity and inclusion. And the lessons we learned when our world went virtual during the global pandemic offers some hope for the future.
Innovation following the global pandemic has truly transformed societies around the world. A little over three decades ago, when the United Nations announced the first International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we lived in a different world. The World Wide Web was still in its infancy—geographic borders defined access to services and supports. And while information moved freely over satellites, we were far from an authentic Global Village that scholars like Marshall McLuhan prophetically theorized in his writings during the 1960s.
For example, the massive rise of distance learning and telehealth due to the pandemic could significantly impact lives in remote regions across the globe. Physicians in Canada realized this after being faced with challenges accessing indigenous youth in the rural reaches of northern Ontario during the pandemic. As a result, innovation in virtual eye exams helped reach children in ways we could not have imagined possible 30 years ago.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that one billion of the 2.2 billion people in the world with a visual impairment are unnecessarily blind or low-vision. This means simple solutions like corrective lenses could quickly remedy many of the challenges people with low vision experience. Similar models could significantly impact regions like sub-Saharan Africa, where, according to the WHO's report, visual impairment is eight times higher than in more developed countries.
Access to telehealth in remote regions of the world is just one way that simple measures can make significant gains toward addressing the needs of people with disabilities. Equally impactful on the independence and inclusion of people with disabilities is access to mobile technology like smartphones. In the case of persons with sensory disabilities, innovative mobile technologies continue to be a significant game changer in augmenting human sense perception and experience. Just browse past issues of AFB's Access World online magazine, and you'll witness the power technology has played toward expanding inclusion and opportunity for people with disabilities, particularly in the mobile communications space.
According to a Pew research study on the prevalence of smartphone usage, there are over five billion mobile subscribers worldwide. However, even though the use of smartphone technology has risen significantly in emerging economies worldwide, an equity gap still exists, encompassing those with access to smartphones. Putting such technology into the hands of people with sensory disabilities can have an enormous impact on breaking down many of the barriers that exist around independence and inclusion.
Of course, it continues beyond access to technology. The software and applications accessed through such technologies must be fully accessible. The key to smartphones unlocking opportunities is dependent on intelligent developers. We are reminded of this in our recent Barriers to Digital Inclusion Study published this past spring. In this study, AFB discovered significant work still needs to be done to make the internet inclusive for all. Across nine core industries online — from shopping and travel to education and job websites — over three-quarters of respondents identified having issues accessing the information equally.
Therefore, upon reflecting on what we can do on this International Day of Persons with Disabilities, I find myself hopeful that the digital age that has galvanized itself in recent years can offer us a key toward unlocking many of the changes that can build a world more inclusive and prosperous with opportunity for people with disabilities. The 188 countries that ratified the CRPD did so to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. Now that we have the will, it's time we start investing in ways that technology can chart the way forward toward full and equal inclusion in our society.
