This Regional Conference on Disability in Commonwealth Africa was held in Nairobi Kenya, at the Nairobi Safari Club on 27th and 28th March 2009. The conference was organised jointly by the Commonwealth Foundation and Leonard Cheshire Disability to highlight the needs of persons with disabilities in Commonwealth Africa and to encourage all stakeholders to take action to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities and protect their rights and promote the ratification and implementation of the United Nations convention on the rights and dignity for persons with disabilities 2006 (UNCRPD). The conference brought together Persons with disabilities, Youth with disabilities, representatives from Governments, Disabled Persons Organisations, NGOs and Civil Society Organisations to share innovative approaches to the challenges being faced and plan concrete follow up actions. The main focus was on exploring ways and means to build capacity across the board to ensure the effective implementation of the UNCPRD.
The conference successfully concluded with the participants identifying key action plans that they would pursue immediately they are back in their respective countries in a bid to starting the process of addressing issues that were pinpointed as practical ways of dealing with disability issues and also implementing the UNCRPD.
Over 60 delegates from 16 African countries attended the conference, which saw speakers from international, regional and national UN bodies, donor and development agencies, DPOs and governments spend time highlighting issues that surround Disability and why PWDs continue to face discrimination and inequality. Acknowledging that millions of persons with disabilities are still the poorest and most marginalised citizens, they discussed and explored opportunities and strategies of how to address disability at various levels. It was emphasised that without including disability in any social, economic planning and processes, development goals and human rights for all world citizens would not be achieved.
In their Conference Resolutions the delegates called upon different actors including, the UN, national governments and DPOs to take upon themselves the responsibilities and obligations to ensure that what is said is implemented. That it was time to move from talking to action. It is time for disabled people to join the mainstream of development actors and to protect them from the effects of the ever rising costs and related vulnerabilities that continue to marginalise and confine PWDs to obscurity and crushing poverty.
The delegates agreed to communicate the outcome of the conference to their representative governments in order to enable them review, prioritise and include issues of disability in their national development plans. They called on all Commonwealth countries to ratify the UNCRPD and its Optional Protocol. They also called on commonwealth African countries to introduce a motion lobbying for the establishment of a UN Special Agency on Disability; to provide support, dedicated resources, leadership, coordination and enhanced monitoring and reporting on the implementation and progress of the effects of the Convention on the lives of persons with disabilities in the ranks of UNICEF and UNIFEM.
