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UN-backed meeting adopts action plan to help disabled persons in Asia, Pacific
28 October 2002
Human Rights
Concluding the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled People, a United Nations-backed meeting held in Japan today adopted a wide-ranging regional framework for action to integrate the concerns of disabled persons into development programmes.
The Biwako Millennium Framework for Action, which incorporates the Millenium Development Goals adopted by world leaders meeting at the UN in 2000, addresses such issues as access to public transport, information, education, training, employment and regional cooperation – all with special emphasis on the needs of women and children, according to the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
About 400 million of the world’s 600 million persons with disabilities live in Asia and the Pacific region, 40 per cent of them living in poverty, ESCAP said. Less than 10 per cent of children and youth with disabilities have access to of education, compared to 70 per cent of their non-disabled counterparts in the region.
The meeting, which was attended by 300 people from 27 countries, including representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN agencies, reviewed [...]