csp day 2 - side event on poverty and disability

1.15. Side event on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Disability is missing from MDGs and their targets. MDGs and CRPD provide useful framework for ensuring pwd are included as participants and beneficiaries. Art. 32 provides international cooperation, informed by Art. 3 in their application, and Art. 4(3) requiring consultation in all processes. There's a new Australian development strategy inspired by CRPD: http://www.ausaid.gov.au/keyaid/disability.cfm. Also US national council on disability is implementing a project to review the USAID disability policy. 

Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo from the World Bank spoke about education. MDG on primary education, she says, presents a mixed picture of progress and huge challenges. On progress, there have been the following key achievements: joint framework millennium declaration; more children are completing primary school (but in sub-Sahara Africa the completion rate is only 60-80%) but high regional averages disguise the fact that some countries are lagging behind. School enrolment is improving. 

In terms of challenges, there is still so much that we don’t know; categories of children are out of school: who and where are these children, how many are they and why aren’t they at school? Data is patchy at best: range from 75 million to 103 million children out school. UN says that a number of factors result in children being out of school are extreme poverty, regional and geographic settings with urban areas having better enrolment rates; 96% of children out of school live in developing countries; ethnic and other minorities; disability. With disability 150-200 million children with disabilities, and 1/3 of out of school children in developing countries have a disability. Less than 5% of children with disabilities finish school. Cost of making basic accommodations in schools for children with disabilities is nominal; exclusion of children is costly and is a human rights violation.

The “education for all” agenda is increasingly being recognised and is engaging on inclusive education. During the ad hoc committee meetings for the CRPD inclusive education was contentious, and we still don’t have all the answers, but we do have some answers and good practices. “Fast track initiative” supports the “education for all” project: this needs to include children with disabilities, and the demand is country-driven. DPOs have a strong role to lobby government and create the demand at country level. Early identification and referral for children with disabilities: crucial for progress. Data is connected as some children with disabilities are not registered at birth. We need to share projects which have worked and those which haven’t worked. We need to find ways of better connecting data.

Joshua Goldstein from www.accion.org spoke about the need for pwd to be included within microfinance schemes. Maria Veronica Rena from GPDD (http://www.gpdd-online.org) spoke on Millennium Development Goal 8 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/global.shtml. Nora Grooce from University College London spoke about public health and the MDGs. The 3rd committee of the UN General Assembly has resolved to include disability in the MDGs, but what is currently lacking is involvement f the 2nd committee which would give the mandate to the UN to include disability into the MDG processes.

This has been an interesting and wide ranging discussion… The next session is on a similar topic: poverty the global economic crisis.