News and Events

Webinar: Protecting and Empowering Persons with Disabilities in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

15 May 2020, 09:00 – 11:00 hours, Thailand Standard Time

ESCAP, in collaboration with Ms. Maria Soledad Cisternas Reyes, Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General on Disability and Accessibility, organized a webinar on protecting and empowering persons with disabilities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Regional Forum on Advancing Disability-inclusive Development through the Beijing Action Plan was held on 18 and 19 December 2019 in Guangzhou, China.

“Empowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality” was the theme topic of the 75th regular session of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) held at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok from 27 to 31 May 2019.

Ensuring universal design-based accessibility of the physical environment, public transport, knowledge, information and communication is a precondition to enhance the political, social and economic participation of an estimated 690 million persons with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific.

The Fifth Session of the Working Group on the Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities was held on 21 and 22 February 2019 at the United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) in Bangkok, Thailand. It was organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Following the adoption of the Incheon Strategy to “Make the Right Real” for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific, ESCAP launched a project to support member States’ capacity building to collect quality disability data for the Incheon Strategy indicators. Several capacity building activities were implemented under the project, including a series of national stakeholder consultations in 17 countries to review the national statistical systems from a disability perspective and devise national action plans.

Persons with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific often fail to be included within social protection schemes, increasing their likelihood of living in poverty.  Available data reveals

A national stakeholder consultation on disability data collection for Incheon Strategy indicators was organized by the Social Development Division of ESCAP in Colombo from 22 to 24 May 2018 under the auspices of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Primary Industries, Government of Sri Lanka.

The Government of Kyrgyzstan and ESCAP co-organized a three-day national consultation on disability data collection in Bishkek from 2 to 4 May 2018 with the main purpose of assessing existing data gaps and evaluating the Government’s overall capacity to generate reliable disability statistics for reporting on the Incheon Strategy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

ESCAP and the Government of Azerbaijan, through the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population, jointly organized a national stakeholder consultation on disability data collection for Incheon Strategy indicators in Baku from 23 to 26 April 2018.

The main objectives of the consultation were two-fold, i.e.: (i) to review the national statistical system in Azerbaijan from the disability perspective; and (ii) to build the government capacity to collect more reliable and comparable disability data for the Incheon Strategy and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.