Disability-inclusive business models for an enabling environment

28/02/2023

As a regional development centre on disability, we strive to communicate the importance and necessity of working towards a disability enabling and disability inclusive future.

Since the 1970s, it was estimated that 10% of the world’s population was disabled. Some 40 years later in 2011, a first-ever joint report on disability produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank (WB) put that number at 15%, or approximately one billion people who were living with some form of disability. By the end of 2022, this figure had increased to 1.3 billion. In Thailand currently, 3.19% of the population, or roughly 2.1 million people, live with some form of disability.

One conclusion that can be drawn from these statistics is that disability is a fact and reality of life. Whether due to an increase in chronic diseases or ageing populations or sadly, war and conflict, disability is not something we can ‘eradicate’. Another conclusion is that the percentage of persons living with some forms of disability is not small and rather a number that must prompt us to action.

And this action must come from having the right attitudes towards and understanding of persons with disabilities. We must continue to find ways to enable and empower persons with disabilities, to live independently and contribute to their communities. This is valuable not only for the disabled population themselves, but for society as a whole, in reducing inequalities that prevent us from reaching our full potential.