On 1 January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development — adopted by world leaders in September 2015 at an historic UN Summit — officially came into force. Over the next fifteen years, with these new Goals that universally apply to all, countries will mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change, while ensuring that no one is left behind.
IDA, along with the International Disability and Development Consortium and other allies across the disability rights movement, successfully advocated for total of 11 references to persons with disabilities in the 2030 Agenda: the UN Agreement that contains the Sustainable Development Goals. This is significant progress from the complete absence of persons with disabilities in the Millennium Development Goals, wich ran from 2000 to 2015. Persistent, strategic and coordinated advocacy by persons with disabilities led to a change in narrative - that persons with disabilities must be a central part of global sustainable development.