Ten years ago, the Asia-Pacific region came together and designed the world's first set of disability-specific development goals: the Incheon Strategy to "Make the Right Real" for Persons with Disabilities.
This week, we meet again to assess how the governments have delivered on their commitments, to secure those gains and develop the innovative solutions needed to achieve fully inclusive societies.
Ministers, government officials, persons with disabilities, civil society and private sector allies from across Asia and the Pacific will be gathering in Jakarta from yesterday to tomorrow to mark the birth of a new era for 700 million persons with disabilities and proclaim a fourth Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities.
Our region is unique, having already declared three decades to protect and uphold the rights of persons with disabilities; 44 Asian and Pacific governments have ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and we celebrate achievements in the development of disability laws, policies, strategies and programmes.
Today, we have more parliamentarians and policymakers with disabilities. Their everyday business is national decision-making. They also monitor policy implementation.
We find them active across the Asia-Pacific region: Australia, Bangladesh, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Türkiye. They have promoted inclusive public procurement to support disability-inclusive businesses and accessible facilities, advanced sign language interpretation in media programmes and parliamentary sessions, focused policy attention on overlooked groups, and directed numerous policy initiatives towards inclusion.
Less visible but no less important are local-level elected politicians with disabilities in India, Japan and South Korea. Indonesia witnessed 42 candidates with disabilities standing in the last election. Grassroot disability organisations have emerged as rapid responders to emerging issues such as Covid-19 and other crises. Organisations of persons with disabilities in Bangladesh have distinguished themselves in disability-inclusive Covid-19 responses, and created programmes to support persons with psychosocial disabilities and autism.
The past decade saw the emergence of private sector leadership in disability-inclusive business. Wipro, headquartered in India, pioneers disability inclusion in its multinational growth strategy. This is a pillar of Wipro's diversity and inclusion initiatives. Employees with disabilities are at the core of designing and delivering Wipro digital services.
Yet there is always more unfinished business to address. Even though we applaud the increasing participation of persons with disabilities in policymaking, there are still only eight persons with disabilities for every 1,000 parliamentarians in the region.
On the right to work, three in four persons with disabilities are not employed, while seven in 10 persons with disabilities have no social protection. This points to the need for disability-specific and disability-inclusive policies and their sustained implementation in partnership with women and men with disabilities.
One of the first steps to inclusion is recognising the rights of persons with disabilities. This model focuses on the person and their dignity, aspirations, individuality and value as a human being. As such, state offices, banks and public transport and spaces must be made accessible for persons with disabilities. To this end, governments in the region have conducted accessibility audits of state buildings and public transport stations. Partnerships with the private sector have led to reasonable accommodations at work, promoting employment in a variety of sectors.
Despite the thrust of the Incheon Strategy on data collection and analysis, persons with disabilities still are often left out of data because the questions that allow for disaggregation are excluded from surveys and accommodations are not made to ensure their participation. This reflects a lack of policy priority and budgetary allocations. To create evidence-based policies, we need reliable and comparable data disaggregated by disability status, sex and geographic location.
There is hope in the technology leap to 5G in the Asia-Pacific region. The implications for people's empowerment are limitless: from digital access, e-health care and assistive devices at affordable prices to remote learning and working, and exercising the right to vote. This is a critical moment to ensure disability-inclusive digitalisation.
We live in a world of volatile change. A disability-inclusive approach to shape this world would benefit everyone, particularly in a rapidly ageing Asia-Pacific region where everyone's contributions will matter. As we stand on the precipice of a fourth Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities, it remains our duty to insist on a paradigm shift to celebrate diversity and disability inclusion. When we dismantle barriers and persons with disabilities surge ahead, everyone benefits.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap).
