Geneva, 25 – 30 January
International Disability Alliance (IDA) Governing Body meeting
Immediate past President of the World Blind Union (WBU) and Vision Australia General Manager International and Stakeholder Relations, Maryanne Diamond, recently travelled to Geneva for the International Disability Alliance (IDA) Governing Body meeting.
The WBU is a founding member of the IDA which is made up of eight global and four regional organisations of persons with disabilities. IDA works to mainstream the rights of persons with disabilities throughout the United Nations system and with other global stakeholders to promote the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) as a human rights treaty and as a social development tool. Ms Diamond is the current WBU representative on IDA.
“Influencing the negotiation process of the post-Millennium Development Goals (MDG) framework (beyond 2015) has become IDA’s most relevant advocacy goal for the near future,” Ms Diamond said.
“IDA has continued to cooperate actively with the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC) in this area of work and have developed a joint position paper.”
“From the information gathered so far, the different national and global consultations will feed into the report that the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons will present to the Secretary General of the UN by the end of May,” Ms Diamond said.
This document will then undergo New York based negotiations leading up to the MDG Summit which will take place in New York.
Another important area of work for IDA relates to the World Bank Safeguard review. World Bank safeguards exist in a number of areas and are supposed to ensure that World Bank funded projects respect certain issues including environmental issues, indigenous peoples, human rights, etc.
Safeguards also have a link with possible complaints submitted to the Joint Inspection Panel, a powerful body that can request the interruption of a project that is being accused of violating human rights.
Disability organizations have been requesting for many years that disability should become one of the World Bank safeguards. This request can now become a reality, given the decision of the World Bank to review its safeguard policy.
“Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) are leading a campaign to influence this process and one part of this campaign focuses on persons with disabilities,” Ms Diamond said.
“This work is led by the Bank Information Center (BIC), a CSO that is focused on World Bank advocacy work. We are working hard to ensure all IDA and WBU members participate and contribute to the consultations being conducted in many countries by the World Bank.”
Capacity Building is another area of priority for IDA.
The TOTAL Project is a funded pilot being undertaken in three regions – West Africa, South Asia and the Pacific. It consists of two face to face modules and assignments or field work for participants between these two modules. Participants are required to develop a public policy statement and conduct training in their country prior to undertaking Module 2.
An online and global training program is being developed building on the experience of the regional pilots. It is anticipated that this program would be available to a greater number of persons at a lesser cost.
A second focus for IDA in capacity building is work being undertaken to understand the cost to a country on the full implementation of the CRPD. Funded by CBM and AusAID, work is taking place in India, the Philippians and during 2013 in Samoa.
“This has proven to be a difficult exercise based on inconsistency or unreliable data. This is a sensitive area of work but an important one,” Ms Diamond said.
“The danger, in my view, is determining the CRPD implementation costs and the costs and responsibility relating to systems and services for all citizens, for example education.”
In addition, in 2013, three international studies will be carried out on social protection, CRPD compliant public procurement and innovative financing for the implementation of the CRPD.
IDA continues to work with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a number of areas. Response has been prepared by IDA to the 2012 World Report on Disability. A global network on Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) has been established on which IDA will have two places. IDA, through its WBU relationship with WHO, presented a statement at the WHO Executive meeting in January. A resolution on access to health for persons with disability was adopted and will be presented at the WHO World Assembly in May 2013.
Meeting with the Australian Mission
While in Geneva, Ms Diamond took the opportunity to meet with Tim Yeend, the Australian Ambassador for Trade in Geneva and David Kilham, the Geneva based person with responsibility for the WIPO treaty negotiations.
“We discussed outstanding issues to be negotiated prior to the Diplomatic Conference in June from both the WBU and the member state perspectives,” Ms Diamond said.
“Australia has become a great ally over the last year playing a leadership role in these negotiations.”
London, 31 January to 1 February
Meeting with Dan Pescod, RNIB campaigner
Ms Diamond met with Mr Pescod who has led much of the text based negotiations for the WBU at WIPO and their work to achieve the treaty over the years.
“We discussed the strategy for the February Special SCCR meeting, outstanding issues and how to address these and the work we need to do over the next few months,” Ms Diamond said.
“We also began to discuss the work required post adoption of the treaty in June. This falls into three areas: support to countries on their copyright legislation, work with countries through our members to ratify the treaty and work to operationalize the treaty to ensure it is used by our members.”
“We do not underestimate the huge amount of work to be undertaken over the next five months to reach agreement on some very important text based issues.”
“In saying this, we are really delighted that the Diplomatic Conference has been called. We are cautiously optimistic the treaty will be adopted by WIPO and it will be a useful and useable treaty which will benefit all persons who are blind worldwide,” Ms Diamond concluded.