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Focus on Ability, Celebrate Diversity: Highlights of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 1993-2002
Social Policy Paper No. 13, 2003
ST/ESCAP/2291

FOREWORD

As we enter the first year of the renewed Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, 2003-2012, it is fitting that we celebrate some of the success stories of the first Asian and Pacific Decade, 1993-2002. This first Decade, which concluded in December 2002, was a unique initiative of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. The Asian and Pacific region was the first and only region in the world to take up the challenge and promote a specific regional initiative, following the conclusion of the first Decade.

In the revitalization of ESCAP, which I have undertaken during the past three years, the work focus has been redirected to address three critically important themes: poverty reduction, managing globalization and emerging social issues. Poverty is a multidimensional issue and the links between disability and poverty are well-documented, with the World Bank suggesting that persons with disabilities may account for as many as 20 per cent of the world’s poorest of the poor. The ESCAP commitment to emerging social issues has always been rights-based and people-focused. This approach underpinned the focus of the first Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, as we have witnessed a marked shift in attitude during the last 10 years from a charitable and welfare-oriented approach to one firmly based on human rights and development. One of the key issues currently being addressed by ESCAP, as we enter the first year of the second Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons, is mobilizing active regional support for the proposed United Nations Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities.

The title of this publication, with its very positive emphasis on ability rather than disability, and on the celebration of diversity rather than the exclusion of those perceived as ‘different’, reflects some of the very significant achievements of the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons. An earlier publication, Pathfinders: Towards Full Participation and Equality of Persons with Disabilities in the ESCAP Region, formed part of the rigorous evaluation of the first Decade. The publication was prepared for presentation at the High-level Intergovernmental Meeting, convened in October 2002, at Otsu City, Shiga, Japan, to conclude the Decade. Together, the two publications form a valuable record of some of the very successful initiatives that have taken place in countries and areas of the ESCAP region. They demonstrate the many ways in which the quality of the lives of women and men, and girls and boys, with disabilities has improved during the Decade. They also reflect the actions taken that will benefit many more persons with disabilities in our region in the future.

It is my hope and belief that the stories and case studies presented in this volume may provide inspiration to others, thus spreading the impact to reach the millions of disabled persons not yet reached by the benefits experienced by the many whose rights were upheld, equality of opportunity enhanced and lives enriched as a result of the implementation of the first Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons.

KIM HAK-SU
Executive Secretary
December 2003