PWDs to be excluded from the medium term development plans of MMDAs

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Francis Asong, Executive Director of Voice Ghana
Francis Asong, Executive Director of Voice Ghana

Pressing needs of persons with disability are largely excluded from the medium term development plans of metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs), Voice Ghana, a local non-governmental organsiation, has said in a report.

Francis Asong, Executive Director of Voice Ghana
Francis Asong, Executive Director of Voice Ghana

The report also damns the government for failing to meet key Article 28 of the United Nations? Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) ratified by parliament in March 2012.

The UN convention seeks to recognize the right of PWDs to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of their living conditions.

The Article further stipulates that states parties should take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right without discrimination on the basis of disability.

But the research conducted in 50 MMDAs across the country from May to August 2014 indict the assemblies for not involving the PWDs in planning and budgeting process, thereby putting up public facilities like toilets, hospitals, schools and offices that inaccessible by the disabled persons.

The assemblies also fail to provide training opportunities to PWDDs to make them employable, a situation they say make them overly dependent on the two per cent common expected serve nearly four million members of the disabled community in Ghana, according World Health Organisation figure.

Transportation needs are ignored by the assemblies in their plans while 91 per cent of PWDs do not have access to pro-poor packages like credit support schemes and scholarships for members, said the report.

Mr. Francis Asong, Executive Director of Voice Ghana described the development as not too good a picture for Ghana after committing to the UN convention.

He told the Ghana News Agency that PWDs required higher levels of skills training and education to realise their full potentials and contribution towards national development agenda.

He called on government to ensure inclusive development at all levels, efficient and timely allocation of resources and integration of needs of PWDs in national and local development.

He also said the organisation was in the process of preparing a petition for onward submission to the government through the minister of Local and Rural Development.

Voice Ghana in partnership with Local Governance Network and the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition is implementing the research project on the theme ?Giving Disability a Centre Stage in Development Plans of Local Government?.

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