APCD Mission Reports 2002
Regional Workshop on Disability and Development, ADB Headquarters,
Manila, Philippines October 2-4, 2002
Distinguished participants at the Regional Workshop on Disability and Development, Manila, Philippines
The Asian Development Bank organized a Regional Workshop on "Disability and Development" on 2 October 2002, at the ADB Headquarters in Manila, Philippines. After the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack in New York City, developed countries planned to promote prevention of terrorism by working on the prevention of poverty, as well as poverty alleviation. ADB was planning to promote poverty alleviation on the disability population in the Asian and Pacific Region. The World Bank estimated that 20% of poorest population belongs to persons with disabilities. The keynote address delivered by Senator Eita Yashiro, Ex-Minister of the Japanese Government and Past Chairperson of Disabled Peoples' International, was titled "Promoting Inclusive Strategies for Disability Issues in Development".
He emphasized that ADB should collaborate with APCD in a poverty reduction program. APCD Chief Adviser, Akiie Ninomiya, presented a paper "Strategies for Mainstreaming Disability Issues in Developing Assistance Program" (PDF Format, 377KB), which emphasized various strategies of the APCD Project such as multi-sectoral, participatory decision-making with persons with disabilities, collaboration with GOs and NGOs; process-oriented, human resources development, grass-root recruitment, community-based, policy advocacy, South to South, as well as collaboration with ADB for poverty alleviation. After showing the APCD introductory video and Mr. A. Ninomiya's speech, Governments and NGOs representatives expressed their wish to cooperate with APCD.
Participants in this workshop were mainly high-level representatives from governments, multilateral development banks, disability organizations, United Nations agencies, and other donor agencies. Disability issues in the Asia-Pacific region were discussed among participants. The following recommendations were given to assist people with disabilities to integrate into society: 1) They must be "visible", 2) They must have the freedom to express their "voice", especially between governments and disabled people's organizations (DPOs), 3) Remove main barriers for people with disabilities and establish an accessible and barrier-free environment, 4) under the UN Charter of Human Rights, people with disabilities have the rights to an equal quality of life, rights, dignity, and services as other citizens. The regional workshop's outputs were the following: 1) short and long term goals for including disability issues in development work, 2) regional action plan to address disability issues with a poverty reduction strategy, 3) reports on mainstreaming disability issues into development policies, and 4) recommendations to the ADB based on workshop findings.
Highlights of the workshops include: 1) strategies on rehabilitation, inclusion and empowerment, architecture and design, the provision of cost-effective assistive technologies and support for disabled people's organizations, 2) identification and development on cross-cutting issues and 3) workshops comprised of keynote addresses, panel presentations, workshop groups, and presentation of reports. The APCD is seeking collaboration with ADB in the future.
[See more detail: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Conference/Disability/disability.pdf]
