What are the 2024 Arequipa Goals?

Photo Credit: Taiwan Panorama (2021)

In May 2024, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) adopted the Arequipa Goals, a landmark initiative aimed at advancing disability education and employment across the region. The APEC Ministers in 2024 and subsequently in May 2025 the APEC Ministers during the 7^th Human Resources Development Ministerial Meeting and the 7^th APEC Education Ministerial Meeting, reaffirmed their commitment towards Arequipa Goals.  

The Arequipa Goals establish targets for APEC member economies to strengthen disability policies and programs by 2030.  All 21 member economies participating in the Human Resources Development Working Group (HRDWG) committed to driving progress toward these objectives, signaling a regional commitment to more accessible labor and education systems. The initiative focuses on efforts in three areas: 

• Education: Expanding participation of learners with disabilities in rural public schools and increasing the number of qualified special education teachers.

• Capacity Building: Improve vocational training programs to meet the needs of persons with disabilities, and support their participation in employment and entrepreneurship, including in micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

• Labor and Social Protection: Promoting policies that increase participation of persons with disabilities in the formal labor market, highlighting their contributions to economic growth, and extending social protection coverage to those in rural and informal sectors.

To guide implementation, the HRDWG created a Friends of the Chair (FotC) on Promoting Disability Policies, consisting of experts from ten economies tasked with providing expertise and sharing good practices. Several have launched programs that support and advance these goals within their respective economies since implementation in May 2024. These include Korea’s ADEPT program supporting digital education access, Malaysia’s DELIMa and FS4A platforms that provide accessible digital learning materials, and Canada’s “Nothing Without Us” strategy co-developed with the disability community. The Philippines has also incorporated disability inclusion into local employment programs, and Chinese Taipei has advanced accessible education and entrepreneurship through APEC funded projects. Additionally, China’s self-funded project, a training course on handicraft making techniques and entrepreneurship development, aims to empower those with disabilities with the tools to find jobs with fixed income or start their own businesses. Australia’s self-funded project, Structural Reforms for Disability: Increasing Economic Participation through Access to Assistive Technology, identifies specific barriers and structural reform opportunities through an exchange of case studies of reforms in APEC economies that increase access to assistive products and services. All of these projects and more demonstrate examples of shared commitment and projects that can be scaled region-wide.

To understand the impact of these local initiatives as well as to assess the overall progress in the region towards the Arequipa Goals in the first year of its implementation, a survey was circulated to APEC HRDWG and FotC on 19^th August 2025. Stay tuned for the next part of the series, which takes a closer look at APEC economies’ actions since adoption of the Arequipa Goals.