With ‘Stroke of Your Pen’, Draft Development Agenda Can Be Amended to Include Explicit Reference to Disabilities, Convention’s States Parties Told
Around the world, more than 1 billion people with disabilities were desperately poor, dying of hunger and preventable disease, which made it essential for their explicit rights and needs to be mainstreamed in the new global development framework currently being negotiated, delegates stressed today as the Conference of States Parties to the Disabilities Convention opened its eighth session.
“You can give them hope with the stroke of your pen,” said Venkatesh Balakrishna, on behalf of civil society, who, in opening remarks, stressed that, despite comprising 20 per cent of the world’s most marginalized, persons with disabilities were not explicitly mentioned in draft sustainable development goal 1 — to end poverty in all its forms everywhere.
“Being invisible from the goal means being invisible from the benefits,” he said. Without an explicit mention, the initiative would be dead in the water. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had brought with it the promise of substantive change. Urging delegates to add the necessary indicators and targets, he said: “Give hope to millions of people. Please use your pen for justice.”
Conference President Oh Joon (Republic of Korea) agreed that while “significant” steps had been taken to advance the Convention’s implementation, a great deal more must be done. Efforts should focus on ensuring equal opportunities in education, health, service provision and employment. With 154 States parties, the challenge was to turn commitments into tangible outcomes. Under the theme of the three-day session — “Mainstreaming disability in the reduction of poverty and inequality” — delegates would examine disability and poverty in light of the post-2015 agenda.
With that in mind, Maria Soledad Cisternas Reyes, Chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, said the first challenge was to draw up indicators for persons with disabilities. “We should not think that social development is built solely on gross domestic product,” she said. It must draw on social justice. Efforts to reduce inequality must consider the civil and political rights of persons with disabilities. The United Nations must better reflect their human rights by ensuring access to all its facilities. In that way, it would live out its role as a “guiding light for social development”.
Indeed, said Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, the 2006 Convention had brought about a shift in considering disability through a human rights-based lens, rather than a charity-based one. He welcomed this year’s focus on mainstreaming the rights of persons with disabilities into the post-2015 agenda and encouraged the development of indicators to enshrine those rights.
“The truth is that persons with disabilities are among the most excluded and isolated in all regions,” he said. Urgent action was needed to reduce discrimination, especially for those facing multiple forms, including women. “We must join forces to build a rights-based development agenda that is inclusive and accessible for persons with disabilities,” he said, as securing their rights would advance society as a whole. “We will all gain from this.”
In the ensuing debate, scores of ministers and senior officials described national laws, programmes and targeted strategies that aimed to enshrine the rights of persons with disabilities within national life. Disability must be raised to the highest level of the public agenda, many said, moving beyond ad hoc responses towards proactive approaches to guarantee their rights. In such work, countries must make the most of every opportunity for South-South cooperation, said Cecilia Vaca, Minister for Social Development of Ecuador. “We must make inclusion a reality.”
That spirit had translated into practical steps on the ground, several speakers said, with Nicola Wagner, Minister for Disability Issues of New Zealand, pointing to a five-year action plan co-designed by persons with disability and Government agencies. Lov Verma, Secretary, Department of Disability Affairs, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment of India, said his Government had launched a national plan to improve skills for 2.5 million people by 2022. With 26.8 million persons with disabilities comprising 2.2 per cent of its population, India understood the importance of early policy intervention.
“Let me put it like this,” said Pernilla Baralt, Deputy Minister for Social Affairs of Sweden, “physical accessibility will not be sufficient to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy their human rights; we need mental ramps to accompany our physical ones.” The right to equal work was of special concern, as employment was essential for social inclusion.
On that point, Nancy Milroy-Swainson, Director General, Employment and Social Development of Canada, said her country was one of the first Group of Seven nations to join the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. Similarly, Joanna Maciejewska, Adviser to the Minister, Department of Economic Analysis and Forecasting, Ministry of Work and Social Policy of Poland, said activities to ensure disabled persons’ participation in her country were financed by a fund into which employers, the Government and the European Union made payments.
At the international level, some advocated a specific disability goal within the new agenda. While there would be “considerable” pushback, said Mired Raad Zeid Al-Hussein, Head of Higher Council for Affairs of Persons with Disabilities of Jordan, it was incumbent on States parties to elevate the issue on any and every occasion. It must be made abundantly clear what the new goals would mean for persons with disabilities. If not, implementation could fall short. “We cannot leave anything to chance,” he said. “Nor do we have the luxury to make mistakes. We must get it right this time.”
Others acknowledged that that road would be long and “bumpy”. Mustapha Bai Attila, Deputy Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs of Sierra Leone, appealed to development partners to provide special needs experts — sign language trainers and others — who could offer services to enhance peoples’ lives.
Still others recalled commitments made at the United Nations High-level Meeting on Development and Disability in 2013, especially provisions outlining the importance of involving persons with the disabilities in the elaboration of the new agenda.
Indeed, the agenda’s entry on the global scene would be the first opportunity for States parties to publicly embrace the Convention since its adoption, said Maryanne Diamond, Chair of International Disability Alliance, one of the few civil society groups taking part in today’s debate. Persons with disabilities were ready to be part of the agenda, starting from design and planning, through to monitoring and implementation.
In its formulation, “I don’t see how we can eradicate poverty without mentioning disabled peoples by name,” said Javed Abidi, Global Chair of Disabled Peoples International. Eighty per cent of the world’s disabled persons lived in the global South, making their explicit inclusion in draft goal 1 of utmost importance.
Also today, the Conference elected representatives of Brazil, Italy, Poland and the United Republic of Tanzania as Vice-Presidents of the eighth session. It also adopted its provisional agenda (document CRPD/CSP/2015/1).
Additional speakers included ministers and senior officials of Barbados, Germany, Ghana, South Africa, Romania, Malta, Malawi, Hungary, Republic of Korea, Brazil, Italy, Philippines, Singapore, Dominican Republic, Estonia, Belgium, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Chile, Czech Republic, Maldives, Colombia, Viet Nam, Russian Federation, Albania, Bulgaria, Spain, Switzerland, Lithuania, Slovenia, Israel, Costa Rica, Australia, Turkey, China, Austria, Indonesia, Argentina, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Qatar, Thailand and Panama.
Also speaking were representatives of the European Union Delegation and the Observer State of Palestine.
Representatives of Rehabilitation International, as well as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) also addressed the Conference.
The Conference of States Parties will reconvene at 10 a.m. Wednesday, 10 June, to continue its session.