The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has concluded plans for a regional training and coordination meeting of the region’s experts, focal points for the inclusion of persons with disabilities in West Africa.
The event, through the Department of Human Development and Social Affairs, is billed for Accra, Ghana from 10 to 12 October, 2022.
A statement by the commission said the meeting will serve as a framework to build capacity of focal points for the inclusion of persons with disabilities, on reporting requirements of the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD.
It will equally sensitise the region’s focal points on the importance of the Protocol of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights relating to the rights of Persons with Disabilities.
At the end of the Accra meeting, the experts from ECOWAS Member States will draw up a framework on the appropriate means to enable several Member States ratify this important Protocol of AfChHPR-PWDs.
To date, only three of the fifteen Member States have ratified the Protocol.
As a reminder, the ECOWAS Regional Action Plan for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities, which was validated by the region’s experts in April 2022, clearly states the measures to be undertaken to strengthen the implementation of international and continental instruments on the rights of persons with disabilities.
In this context, ECOWAS is keen to field awareness and sensitisation campaigns in the respective Member States for the ratification and implementation of the AfChHPR-PWDs and strengthen the capacities of actors in the Member States.
The study had revealed that persons with disabilities in the region face social stigma, especially those with mental disabilities, or with hearing or visual disabilities.
