A very important global meeting on disability and development in Doha has concluded with a number of invaluable recommendations to integrate persons with disabilities into national development plans of countries around the world.
Qatar by hosting Doha International Conference on Disability and Development (DICDD) has again proved, in global community, its responsible attitude and approach towards addressing various issues of contemporary world.
Qatar Foundation for Social Work (QFSW) launched the ‘Doha Declaration’ at the closing ceremony of the DICDD. The two-day conference, which attracted over 1,500 policymakers and practitioners, took place under the theme ‘Leaving No One Behind’. H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, a global advocate for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Founder of Qatar Foundation for Social Work (QFSW), inaugurated DICDD on Saturday.
Addressing the opening ceremony, H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser said: “Recent studies have shown what I also believe that every human has some form of disability, albeit of different kinds and at different stages. But there should be no difference between one person and another, based on their level of disability.” “In order to restore time’s passage and address the discrimination resulting from the current and past concept of disability, we have a great deal of work ahead of us to correct the consequences of these misconceptions and the perceptions that followed as a result.”
The Doha Declaration states “the conferees of the Doha International Conference on Disability and Development came together in the spirit of the UN Charter to advance peace, justice and human rights for all and especially for the 1.5 billion persons with disabilities in the world.” The participants recommended to combat structural barriers causing the exclusion of persons with disabilities, with a noteworthy emphasis on discriminatory laws and policies, fragmentation of services, lack of accessibility to physical and visual environments, lack of access to assistive technology and to rehabilitation and lack of measures to promote independent living of persons with disabilities.
They called for establishing large scale awareness-raising campaigns promoting disability rights, using the voice of persons with disabilities as a key driver to nudge the community, reducing discrimination, negative attitudes and stigma which hinders the social participation of persons with disabilities and to ensure that SDGs strategies at the national levels consciously take into account the need for cultural transformation. Meanwhile, in her speech at the conference, the H E Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Amina Mohammed commended pioneering role of the State of Qatar in addressing the challenges of people with disabilities, during her speech today at the opening of DICDD.
