Disability Inclusion at WIPO
Innovators and creators, and the people who support innovation and creativity, are at the core of WIPO’s mission.
For everyone to be able to participate and express their talents and ideas, a supportive environment is needed that makes people - including people with disabilities, in all their diversity - feel welcomed, accepted and encouraged, both within WIPO and in the broader Intellectual Property (IP) ecosystem.
People living with disabilities enrich the IP system and our workforce, bringing new and additional perspectives and ideas. Diversity, belonging and inclusion are foundational to an innovative, forward-looking and creative environment, where all contribute to “a world where innovation and creativity from anywhere is supported by intellectual property for the good of everyone”.
IMAGE: WIPO/Berrod
One in seven of us experiences some form of disability in our lifetime. Empowering people living with disabilities to realize their full potential is, therefore, both an essential matter of human rights and an issue that should concern us all. We aspire to create and sustain an inclusive working environment, one in which every individual is accepted and valued no matter who they are, where they are from or whether they live with a disability or not.
Daren Tang
WIPO’s work on disability inclusion
Through its work on disability inclusion, WIPO aims to:
- Facilitate a cultural shift towards a rights-based approach to disability;
- Embed the rights of persons with disabilities into both the internal and external aspects of our work;
- Listen to, learn from and strengthen our engagement with diverse persons with disabilities and their representative organisations;
- Support greater diversity in the workforce;
- Mainstream disability across relevant initiatives and programmes, improving access to IP services for persons with disabilities.
WIPO Disability Inclusion Strategy
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2023
Did you know?
Our work on disability inclusion embraces a right-based approach to disability inclusion, as per the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability. This approach promotes, protects and ensures the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity.
Accessibility is one of the key drivers of disability inclusion, and of our work. Accessibility means taking appropriate measures to ensure access to persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, to all the activities that WIPO organizes. This encompasses the physical environment, ICT systems, events and learning opportunities, to name but a few. Granting equal accessibility includes the identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers.
WIPO is committed to taking an approach that recognizes that persons with disabilities may experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.
