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International frameworks at both the global and regional levels have a number of pros and cons. Firstly, they are always challenged, no matter the positives and other negatives, by a need for adequate funding in order to achieve whatever goals are being set out. As noted by the global charity Trocaire, just before the United Nations summit to ratify the Sustainable Development Goals, the World Bank has estimated the Sustainable Development Goals will cost trillions of dollars. Government agencies, then and now, have not committed the estimated trillions of dollars that are necessary to achieve the SDGs, rather governments have chosen to lean on the private sector as one way to fill the funding gap. This lack of funding not only continues to impact the Sustainable Development Goals, but shows a pattern since lack of funding also impacted the Millennium Develop Goals. A retrospective by the United Nations highlighted the fact that the Millennium Develop Goals did not provide an outline for a process, including funding mechanisms, as how to achieve the MDGs. Now, the Sustainable Development Goals have become an amorphous pick and mix of issues, that have improved on the MDGs by adding specific targets, yet continue to lack a clear funding mechanism for achieving the agreed targets.

One other bright spot with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals is that, in spite of the lack of focus, or maybe because of the lack of focus, persons with disabilities have been integrated into several SDGs through the use of specific language. Inclusive language referencing “for all” is used as well when persons with disabilities are not specified within a particular SDG. This achievement follows on the heels of the ratification of the CRPD, and movements by the UK’s Department for International Development, the US Agency for International Development, the Nordic counties, the Australian Development Agency, and the German international aid agency to all include persons with disabilities in development programs. The language in the Sustainable Development Goals, that was agreed to by the UN’s membership, will continue moving the importance of development for persons with disabilities forward even if the Sustainable Development Goals do not provide a specific funding mechanism just as the Millennium Develop Goals did not.