A/HRC/43/41/Add.3
support them during those times. The Special Rapporteur’s report on the right to equal
recognition before the law contains further useful guidance (A/HRC/37/56).
IV. International cooperation
74.
The Special Rapporteur notes with appreciation the efforts of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation to make its
official development assistance increasingly accessible and inclusive of persons with
disabilities, in line with article 32 of the Convention and the Sustainable Development
Goals. Norway promotes the rights of persons with disabilities in the Global Partnership for
Education and other multilateral forums, supports the United Nations Partnership to
Promote the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and engages in the Global Action on
Disability Network. The country has adopted the policy marker created by the Development
Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to
track development finance that promotes the inclusion and empowerment of persons with
disabilities, and in its international assistance efforts it considers disability inclusion as a
cross-cutting human rights issue. Norway is also considering hosting the Global Disability
Summit in the future.
75.
The Special Rapporteur welcomes the inclusion and participation of persons with
disabilities in all the initiatives undertaken by the Agency for Development Cooperation, as
well as the longstanding cooperation through grants with Atlas Alliance, an umbrella
organization of persons with disabilities engaged in international development work.
Furthermore, in 2019, Norway allocated NKr 400 million over four years to three
Norwegian organizations of persons with disabilities and to two international NGOs to
implement projects in sub-Saharan Africa, where persons with disabilities are at the
forefront in the design and implementation of projects.
76.
The Special Rapporteur recommends that Norway strengthen its efforts to track how
beneficiaries of its multilateral assistance ensure that persons with disabilities are the real
recipients of assistance, including by providing data disaggregated by disability. In the
context of the recently adopted United Nations disability inclusion strategy, in cases where
Norway sits on the executive boards of United Nations entities, it could request them to
track implementation of the strategy and devote resources to its implementation.
V. Conclusions and recommendations
A.
Conclusions
77.
Norway has shown a strong, high-level political commitment to promoting and
protecting the rights of persons with disabilities, which is reflected in its
comprehensive normative system, policies and programmes, a generally robust social
protection system and the allocation of considerable resources to achieve the social
inclusion of persons with disabilities. It also strives to provide an education system in
which children with disabilities attend regular school as a general rule, to make all its
international cooperation efforts inclusive and to have universal design initiatives at
all levels of governance.
78.
That strong commitment to the rights of persons with disabilities needs,
however, to be better reflected in day-to-day implementation. While persons with
disabilities in Norway enjoy a higher quality of life compared to their peers in other
countries, practice shows that they still do not have access to the same rights and
opportunities on an equal basis with their fellow citizens without disabilities. That is
still the case, for instance, in the areas of employment, independent living and legal
capacity. The State has an obligation to ensure that persons with disabilities in
Norway have the same opportunities as anyone else in the country. In the context of
the recent work of some of its law commissions, the State also has an important
opportunity to adjust its legislation in the areas of legal capacity, coercion, mental
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