The United Nations estimates that some 650 million persons have disability and that 75 per cent of this vast majority live in developing countries and is among the poorest of the poor. According to World Bank estimates, one of every five of the world’s poorest persons is disabled.

Since the 1995 world summit for social development in Copenhagen, the UN Commission for Social Development has been vested with the responsibility of the follow-up action. India is currently one of the 46 members of the commission and its theme for this year is to “eradicate absolute poverty, support full employment and to promote social integration based on enhancement and protection of human rights.”

Lack of access

The Commission which completed its 46th session, took note of the fact that there are 500 million persons with disabilities within the working age in the world and often lack access to employment on account of discrimination in the areas of education, vocational skills and training. It was also felt that employment legislations and regulations need to be revised in such a manner that they take into consideration the needs and concerns of the disabled people.

Enabling policies leading to access to education, training, employment, services, credit, transportation, information and more were stressed by the member countries. States were also urged to launch information campaigns to address inequality of persons with disabilities in cooperation with trade unions and other civil society organisations.

Many member countries referred to the half way to the Millennium Development Goals(MDG) target date of 2015, the “Factsheet on Persons with Disabilities” published by the UN which revealed a grim link between poverty and disability. Countries like South Korea have demonstrated that every strategy to fulfill the MDGs such as poverty eradication as well as education and gender equity should pay serious attention to inclusiveness and accessibility for persons with disabilities.

The UN commission was of the view that social security for persons with disabilities should be considered as a public service and that should provide access to health, education, social security, safe water and sanitation. It sadly reiterated the fact that majority of people with disabilities had no adequate social protection and gave a clarion call to ensure that decent work comes with decent social protection which should be considered as a productive investment.

When we put disabled people at the centre of everything that we do to assure full employment and decent work for all, we take the first step in making a decent life possible for every disabled person of the society. The 46th session witnessed considerable presence of the disabled people’s organisations.

The declaration emphasised the fact that the promotion of decent work is a key factor in ensuring that persons with disabilities benefit from development on an equal basis with others. Access to education and training, access to micro-credit schemes and entrepreneurial opportunities, inclusive and non-discriminatory human resource policies, reasonable accommodation at the work place and anti-discriminatory legislations will result in equal opportunities in the open market for persons with disabilities. 

Considerable shift

It was heartening to note that there has been considerable shift in the agenda and actions of the commission since 1995 towards mainstreaming disability. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities has become a major instrumental factor in driving the commission to ensure inclusion of disability while reviewing the social plans and programmes of action of the member states.

The resolutions passed by the commission can become the guiding factors for the civil society organisations in a country like India to influence policies and programmes for the development of people with disabilities. It is certainly beneficial for the civil society organisations and more so for disabled people’s organisations to take the Social Commission seriously.

(The writer is an observer with UN Social Commission for Social Development.)