..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date: 24 October 2009
Press Release No: G/71/2009

UN-assisted meeting agrees to new strategy on disability for Pacific region

Bangkok (UN/ESCAP Information Services) -- Thirteen Pacific island nations and territories considered a new region-wide strategy for addressing the needs of persons with disabilities, taking into account how resource and legislative commitments for implementation can be made at national levels.

The Pacific Regional Strategy for Disability was agreed during the first Forum Disability Ministers Meeting, which was held from 21 to 23 October in Rarotonga, Cook Islands. The meeting was organized by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in collaboration with the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

“When delivering to those who need us most, let us not forget that it is our marginalization of people with disabilities that acts as a barrier to development,” Noeleen Heyzer, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, said in her opening statement.

Dr. Heyzer noted that the exclusion of people with disabilities from the labour market leads to an estimated annual loss of nearly $2 trillion in global GDP. “As we recover from the worst economic crisis in decades, we need to remember that inclusive and sustainable development is in our interest,” she said.

In Asia and the Pacific, as many as 400 million persons have disabilities, the vast majority of whom have limited or no access to appropriate education, health and social services, and employment. Discrimination and ignorance about persons with disabilities exacerbates their social and economic exclusion.

Yet up to half of all disabilities are preventable. Due to malnutrition, exposure to unsafe working conditions and limited access to medical services, the poor are more likely to have disabilities.

ESCAP pioneered the rights-based approach to disability issues in 1993, promoting a shift away from a charity-based approach, as outlined in the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action to Promote an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific, and its supplement, the Biwako Plus Five.

Pacific Island delegations expressed appreciation for the assistance ESCAP had provided to address disability concerns in the Pacific and specifically for assistance in developing rights-based national policy statements.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which took effect in 2008, reaffirms the rights-based approach to disability which recognizes that persons with disabilities are vulnerable and disadvantaged, due to physical, institutional and attitudinal barriers in society.

The participation of persons with disabilities and their organizations in promoting this approach has been instrumental in advancing both policy development and discourse on this issue in the Pacific. Greater effort will be given towards mainstreaming disability in national planning and budgeting processes, strengthening partnerships between governments and civil organizations and strengthening capacity to ensure a rights-based approach to development.

Ministers from Australia, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu as well as the Cook Islands and Niue participated at the Forum Disability Ministers Meeting.

For further information regarding this meeting, please contact:

Iosefa Maiava
Head
ESCAP Pacific Operations Centre
Suva, Fiji Islands
Tel: +679-3319669
Mobile +679-9991984
Fax: +679-3319671
Email: maiavai@un.org