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..Press
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UNESCAP News Services
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Date 3
August 2005
Press Release No: G/18/2005
UNESCAP’s Asia-Pacific region disabled
plan draws world attention
Bangkok (United Nations Information Services)
-- A UNESCAP seminar South-to-South Corporation for the Decade
of People with Disabilities has drawn for the first time participants
from four regions around the world.
The 130 delegates from Asia Pacific, African,
Arab and Latin American and Caribbean regions, discussed ways
to promote each region's policy guideline document for the decade
of disabled person in each region, including the Biwako Millennium
Framework , an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights Society for
Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific (BMF) for
the ESCAP region. The framework was adopted as the major regional
policy guideline for the new Decade at the High Level Intergovernmental
meeting in Otsu, Japan in October 2002.
The seminar, organized by the United Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) with its partner
the Bangkok-based Asia Pacific Development Centre on Disability
(APCD), a project of the Governemtn of Japan and the Goverment
of Thailand, and helped to facilitate inter-regional cooperation
by working toward empowerment of people with disabilities and
creating a barrier free society globally, through achieving
the goals of each regional Deacade.
“Persons with disabilities are far from having achieved
equal opportunities while integration into society is far from
satisfactory. Public actions campaigns as well as public awareness
must be our priority to ensure that persons with disabilities
live their lives as integrated part of their own community ,”
stated H.E Dr Surakiat Sathirathai, Deputy Prime Minister of
the Government of Thailand, at the opening ceremony on July
29th.
“The empowerment of persons with disabilities is seen
as an important component of socio-economic development at the
nationl level. I would like to express our shared aspirations
for an inclusive, barrier free and rights-based society in which
all people with different disabilities and unique diversities
can fully claim and enjoy rights on an equal basis,” added
ESCAP’s Executive Secretary Mr Kim Hak-Su in his message.
“I hope that this seminar will be very fruitful and that
the cooperation in this field will be further strengthened,”stated
Mr Mikihara Sato, Resident Representative of Japan International
Cooperation Agency.
Further information please contact:
Mr. David Lazarus, Chief, UN Information Services,
Bangkok
Tel: +(66-2) 288-1861-66; Fax: +(66-2) 288-1052
Tel. in Republic of Korea: +82-2-3188225
Mobile: 82-010 3982-3529
E-mail: unisbkk.unescap@un.org
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