Disability Buzz
May and June were landmark months for the international disability community and following are a few unofficial highlights. More comprehensive reports on most of these events will appear in the next issue of Disability World.
UN Ad Hoc Committee meeting agrees to disability convention
As this report is posted, disability advocates all over the world are celebrating the first big win of the 21st century: starting with the surge of pride on June 19 when Secretary General Kofi Annan announced his heartfelt support for a UN disability convention, and concluding on June 27 with a down to the wire decision of the 2nd Ad Hoc Committee, emerging from two weeks of obstructions and opaque negotiations, to formulate a working group to go forward with developing a convention. The meeting chair, Ambassador Luis Gallegos of Ecuador, was the champion of the fortnight, mustering all diplomatic skills to marshal the process toward the product.
The final decision was to recommend to the UN General Assembly that a working group of 27 countries and 12 non-governmental organizations, including human rights organizations, be created to craft a convention. The official decision, as well as various papers and documents presented, can be found on the following website: www.worldenable.net and an impassioned summary of the process by writer/advocate Marta Russell can be found at www.jfanow.org/cgi/getli.pl?1777
Some of the factors derailing or slowing the deliberations were: governmental resistance to having NGOs as full partners in the process, the announcement of the U.S. government that it would not be party to a treaty, disagreements among governments as to how to distribute geographical representation on the working group, some North/South dissention about whether a convention should mirror other UN human rights treaties or add in economic considerations reflecting the realities of developing countries, and diverging points of view among the NGOs about how a balance of disability diversity, gender and geographic areas could be achieved among their representatives on the working group. Another contentious and unresolved issue is whether UN leadership for the Convention process should be based with its traditional "disability home" at the Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) in New York or with the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. Details to follow in the next Disability World.
International Disability Alliance meets
The 7 member groups of the International Disability Alliance held a weekend meeting in New York on June 21-22 to take advantage of the proliferation of UN family and NGOs present for the Ad Hoc deliberations. Under the Presidency of Kikki Nordstrom of the World Blind Union, IDA held consultations with the ILO about its support for the UN convention, and with UNICEF to ascertain its future commitment to childhood disability programming. IDA members and other NGOs had undertaken a letter writing campaign in May to protest an apparent reduction in UNICEF staffing on disability issues. IDA also met with the newly appointed UN Rapporteur on Disability, Sheika Hessa of Qatar, who succeeds Bengt Lindqvist in the post.
Whither WHO on CBR?
In May the World Health Organization and the government of Finland hosted a 20 year review of progress in Community Based Rehabilitation, held in Helsinki. An invitation only event, the three day conference was spent mostly in small group sessions with the 100+ CBR specialists pre-assigned to a particular discussion group with the task of answering set questions. Some participants found this format confining as it meant they could only interact with their group members, while others wondered about the absence of a few well known but iconoclastic CBR specialists. There were some compelling best practice presentations by CBR specialists with and without disabilities, but it was unclear what forms of CBR will be promoted and how by the UN agencies. For example, the head of the WHO Disability & Rehabilitation (DAR) unit, Dr. Enrico Pupulin, is retiring and his apparent replacement, Dr. Federico Montero, a wheelchair-using rehabilitation physician from Costa Rica, has a contract of only one year's duration. The ILO and UNESCO were well represented but both UNDP and UNICEF were absent, although invited as major "stakeholders."
It is perhaps unfair to point out that a bit of WHO's chronic lack of clarity about how CBR fits into its mission can be found on the DAR website (www.who.int/ncd/disability/index.htm): "The WHO programme in disability and rehabilitation provides support for member states for policy development with special focus on chronic condition and support for integrating rehabilitation into Primary Health Care through Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) strategy with special attention to chronic condition."
World Bank Sponsors Dialogue on Disability & Development
Following the CBR conference, the World Bank brought together approximately 40 leaders in disability and development for a two day dialogue in Helsinki. Led by Judy Heumann, the World Bank adviser on disability, and Kalle Konkkola, a Finnish pioneer in development projects to strengthen disability organizations in developing countries, the discussions centered on patterns in development aid over the last 20 years and how current approaches to reducing poverty among the disabled populations of developing countries could be improved. A report will be issued shortly.
Special Olympics Takes over Dublin
For the first time in its history the Special Olympics for athletes with cognitive impairments was held outside the U.S. More than 7000 athletes from 166 countries, 3000 coaches and 29,000 of the athletes' relatives and supporters descended on Dublin for the last week of June. The event was opened by the Honorable Nelson Mandela and the only development marring the occasion was the disappearance of five delegates from Niger and Pakistan as departure day arrived. As of July 2, they were still missing.
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