SOC/4790
Commission for Social Development
Fiftieth Session
6th & 7th Meetings (AM & PM)
Commission for Social Development Continues Debate, Holds Special Event
Sidelined for too long, the rights of people with disabilities must be fully integrated into the development policy road maps to be hammered out at the upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and at next year’s General Assembly High-level Meeting on Disability and Development, Shuaib Chalklen, Special Rapporteur on Disability, told the Commission for Social Development today.
“Both meetings are important for setting future global development goals and we cannot have a repeat of the exclusion of disability such as we experienced in the past,” Mr. Chalklen said as he briefed the Commission on his work over the past year. He called on Member States to support those meetings at the highest level, facilitate the participation by organizations representing people with disabilities, and support the United Nations Partnership to Promote the Rights of Disabled Persons, an inter-agency initiative launched in December.
He said Governments and civil society alike must work to create policies that would bring equal opportunities to disabled people in all aspects of life. Such efforts were particularly important as the number of disabled people continued growing to more than 1 billion people, or 15 per cent of the global population, according to the 2011 World Report on Disability, a joint publication of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank.
Mr. Chalklen said that in the past year, he had travelled the globe, attending intergovernmental seminars in Oslo, New Delhi and New York, and meeting with Government representatives from China to Spain to spread that message. His mandate also includes monitoring, promoting and implementing the United Nations Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities in the context of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other human rights and disability-specific instruments.
He said he was encouraged by the increasing number of States that had ratified the Convention and its Optional Protocol, and by the fact that United Nations bodies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) now employed full-time staff as disability focal points, in addition to paying more attention to the concerns of disabled children.
Citing recent positive steps by African Governments to implement the Convention, he said that a High Court ruling in Zambia required polling stations to provide disability access during elections, while a regional court in South Africa had ordered the Cape Town provincial government to increase funding for centres supporting disabled children. As part of efforts to strengthen the continent’s disability institutions, the African Union Commission had upgraded the African Rehabilitation Institute from a membership-based organization to a full structure, he said, adding that it had also decided to set up a Disability Advisory Board. However, important regional institutions remained silent on disability, he said, noting that there had been little or no involvement by the African Development Bank and only limited involvement by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Following that presentation, the Commission held a discussion to review United Nation plans and programmes of action pertaining to the situation of social groups, with representatives of Member States, intergovernmental bodies and civil society sharing their views on the challenges facing disabled persons and other vulnerable groups, such as youth and the elderly, as well as strategies to tackle them. For example, Denmark’s representative, speaking for the European Union, said the bloc had launched a 10-year strategy to empower disabled men and women through eight priority action areas: accessibility, participation, equality, employment, education and training, social protection, health and external action.
The African Union’s Commissioner for Social Affairs said that the continent’s Social Development Ministers were crafting a new disability framework in a bid to bolster the rights and participation of disabled persons through better access to education, training and employment. To better aid older persons, she said, the African Union Commission had helped to draft a Protocol on the Rights of Older Persons as an addition to the African Charter of Human and People’s Rights, which would provide for the creation of the Advisory Council on Ageing.
A representative of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Older People said that such legal instruments were crucial for preventing elder abuse in Africa and elsewhere. Older people, particularly women, suffered from chronic poverty, but their rights were rarely included in poverty eradication strategies. A convention on the rights of older people would provide a framework for policymaking and establish the necessary accountability and enforceability mechanisms that the 2002 Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing lacked.
In the afternoon, the Commission held a special event on “Financing of social development”. Moderated by Alex Trepelkov, Director of the Financing for Development Office in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the event featured four panellists: Elliot Harris, Special Representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to the United Nations; Christine Bockstal, Chief of the Technical Cooperation and Country Operations Group of the Social Security Department at the International Labour Organisation (ILO); Elias Eljuri Abraham, President of the National Institute of Statistics of Venezuela; and Eva-Maria Hanfstaengl, Director and Co-Founder of Social Justice in Global Development.
Also speaking today were the Minister for Employment and Social Welfare of Ghana; the Secretary of State and Deputy Minister for Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation; the Director General for Social Inclusion and Social Policies in the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies of Italy; a Senator and President of the Thailand Association for the Blind; the Minister for Human Development and Social Promotion of San Juan Province in Argentina; the Deputy Head of the Department for Policy on Ageing, Population and Volunteering in the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection of Austria; and the Special Adviser to the Ministry of Children, Equality and Social Inclusion of Norway.
Also speaking today were representatives of Zimbabwe, Japan, China, Romania, Republic of Korea, Malta and Viet Nam.
Representatives of the following civil society organizations also delivered statements: Congregation of Our Lady of Good Charity of the Good Shepherd, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and Council of North and South America, and the International Presentation Association of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Commission will meet again at 10 a.m. on Monday, 6 February, to hold a panel discussion on “Youth — poverty and unemployment”.
Background
The Commission for Social Development met this morning to hear a presentation by the Special Rapporteur on Disability and to begin its general discussion on the review of United Nations plans and programmes of action pertaining to the situation of social groups. In the afternoon, the Commission was expected to hold a special event on “Financing of social development”.
Presentation by Special Rapporteur on Disability
SHUAIB CHALKLEN, Special Rapporteur on Disability, presented his third annual oral report on his work, highlighting the importance of ensuring that people with disabilities participated in the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on Disability and Development, to be held in September 2013, and the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (“Rio+20”), to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June. Disability must be mainstreamed into all development goals, he stressed.
Mr. Chalklen said that, as part of his mandate, he continued to monitor, promote and implement the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities in the context of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other human rights and disability-specific instruments. The aim was to foster development of national policies that gave disabled people equal opportunities.
He recalled that he had attended several global events in the past year, among them a seminar hosted by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation in Oslo last February, meetings of the Commonwealth Secretariat in New Delhi in January 2011, and the fourth session of the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities, held in New York last September.
The Special Rapporteur went on to outline his meetings with representatives of the Governments of China, India, Norway, Philippines, Spain, Sweden, Thailand and the United States, and with those of civil society groups to discuss the Convention’s implementation status and other disability-specific instruments. He had also met with senior officials of Finland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He said the aim had been to discuss the promotion of equality and the empowerment of disabled people, as well as the need to advance disability-inclusive international cooperation.
He said he was encouraged by the increase in the number of States that had ratified the Convention and its Optional Protocol, and noted also that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) now had full-time staff as disability focal points and that the concerns of disabled children were receiving greater attention. In December, UNDP, UNICEF, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs had launched the United Nations Partnership to Promote the Rights of Peoples with Disabilities.
The Special Rapporteur said that an important finding of the World Report on Disability, launched in June 2011 by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, was the increase in the number of people with disabilities around the world to more than 1 billion, or 15 per cent of the global population. That was up from the previous estimate of 10 per cent, he said, noting that the total population figure for least developed countries had reached 800 million.
That was particularly important in Africa, he continued, noting several encouraging developments. For example, the African Union Commission for Social Development had met in Harare last September to discuss ways to strengthen the continent’s disability institutions. The African Rehabilitation Institute had been upgraded from a membership-based organization to a full structure of the African Union Commission, and its name would be changed to reflect a more comprehensive focus, in line with global disability developments. The African Union Commission had also decided to create a Disability Advisory Board, to include the Secretariat for the African Decade of Persons with Disabilities. The Commission would also work to create an African Disability Forum, he added.
Several African Governments were taking steps to implement the Convention, he continued. In Zambia, for example, the High Court had recently heard from organizations representing people with disabilities, who had complained that voting stations had not been accessible for the disabled during the recent presidential election. The High Court had ruled in favour of those groups, stating that polling stations in future elections must have disability access. In South Africa, the regional court in Cape Town had responded to a petition from parents of severely disabled children by ordering the provincial government to increase funding for centres supporting disabled children and to report on progress within one year.
Last October, the Pan-African Network of Users of Psychiatry had met in Cape Town to develop an Africa-wide network that would advocate for the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities. Further, the Secretariat of the Convention intended to help the Governments of four African countries to build their capacity to implement the Convention. Despite those encouraging developments, however, many challenges remained. “It is important for the voice of Africans with disabilities to be strengthened so that their concerns can be put on their Government’s development agenda,” he stressed. “Important regional institutions remain silent on disability in Africa.” To date, there was little or no involvement of the African Development Bank, he said, adding that he intended to spend more time working in Africa, particularly on regional development and finance institutions.
Turning to the upcoming Rio+20 Conference and the General Assembly’s High-level Meeting in September 2013, he said both were important for disability in terms of development programming and policy. “Both meetings are also important for setting future global development goals, and we cannot have a repeat of the exclusion of disability such as we experienced in the past,” he said. Emphasizing that disability must be fully included in the Rio principles and any future action plans, he added that he would participate in preparations for the high-level meeting and encouraged all civil society groups to do the same.
In the coming year, the Special Rapporteur said, he intended to complete consultations on the creation of the African Disability Forum and to encourage its full establishment this year. He would work with civil society to advocate for a disability policy on the part of global development and finance institutions, particularly those in Africa. He would also work with the African Union to support the African disability architecture, while continuing to work with the Human Rights Council and the Committee on the Disabilities Convention.
In the ensuing discussion, Mexico’s representative asked the Special Rapporteur to elaborate on his expectations for the High-level Assembly meeting. Australia’s representative asked what priority action was needed to ensure that disaster preparedness and risk reduction took the needs of disabled people into account. She also acknowledged the African Union’s efforts in taking forward the rights of disabled people, but nevertheless asked about the role of other regional organizations. A delegate from the European Union asked about the challenges of integrating the disability agenda and personnel for that purpose into international organizations, and about specific steps that Governments should take to improve the conditions of vulnerable groups of disabled people. Egypt’s representative noted that mental disability carried a stigma that affected families as well as society, particularly in rural areas.
Mr. CHALKLEN responded by saying that the best way to prepare for the High-level Assembly event was to meet with regional structures beforehand. He said he intended to solicit feedback from the Secretariat of the African Decade of Persons with Disabilities that could inform the Meeting’s preparatory committees. He hoped to meet with International Asia Pacific Disabled Peoples International, a global network of national organizations or assemblies of disabled people working to promote the human rights of people with disabilities. He stressed the importance of consulting with other institutions and civil society groups in order to ensure that their views were included in preparation for the High-level Meeting.
Concerning the protection of disabled people during disasters and conflicts, he commended the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation’s seminar last year for its efforts to address that concern. He said he had also met with the United Nations Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Haiti to discuss the fact that the rights and needs of disabled people were missing from that country’s reconstruction programme.
On installing focal points on disability within institutions, he said that, to be effective, they must be supported by the leadership of their respective institutions. Expressing regret that many developing countries lacked support and services for disabled people, he said the dearth of teachers who understood and could teach sign language, for example, had left many deaf adults illiterate. As for the social stigma of mental illness, he said families everywhere, not just in Egypt, felt that shame, adding that in some cases, families hid their mentally disabled children. Broad awareness-raising was needed to eliminate stigma and erase the perception in some societies, particularly in Africa, that disability was caused by witchcraft.