National stakeholder consultation on disability data collection in Georgia

ESCAP co-organized with the Government of Georgia a national stakeholder consultation on disability statistics in Tbilisi from 17 to 19 January 2017. The consultation involved a series of meetings with senior policymakers, legal experts and statisticians from the Human Rights Secretariat of the Administration's Office, the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Affairs, the National Statistical Office (Geostat), the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure, the Central Election Commission and the Public Defender's Office as well as UN Country Team and Disabled People Organizations. The meetings provided an opportunity to review the national statistical system in Georgia from a disability perspective and assess its capacity to produce reliable and comparable statistics on persons with disabilities to better monitor the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Incheon Strategy to Make the Right Real for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific. Based on the findings of the consultation, ESCAP will help the Government of Georgia develop a national action plan on enhancing disability data collection.