Wednesday 23 September 2015

OUR RESPONSETO PRESIDENT LUNGU'S SPEECH TO PARLIAMENT


22nd September, 2015.

TO ALL MEDIA HOUSES

Press Statement

For Immediate Release

This statement is released as a reaction to the speech given by the President of the Republic of Zambia, His Excellence, Mr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu. Disability Rights Watch believes that the speech was message-carrying and it contained what Zambians and the international co-operating partners always want to hear. The speech partly carried a great promise for the people of Zambia in general and if all words became deed, we would see and experience the “transformation” the speech is advocating. The speech was also encouraging to Disability Rights Watch (DRW) because it touched on some issues DRW has for some time been advocating, especially the expedition of the enactment of the Mental Health Bill in the current sitting of the National Assembly. We pass our open gratitude to the President for this because the enactment of the Bill will be a landmark decision for persons with psycho-social disabilities.

The Mental Health Bill will remain a landmark decision because of its stance in clarifying the human rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities. It empowers persons with psycho-social disabilities to participate in making decisions that affect their life either direct and independently or through supported decision making. This is a key fundamental right that has for a long time been suppressed by the archaic Mental Disorders Act of 1951. Persons with psycho-social disabilities, together with other disability organisations have been calling for the establishment of the National Mental Health Commission which would oversee the promotion and protection of the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities and at the same time monitor the implementation of mental health services in Zambia. The pronunciation of the enactment of the Mental Health Bill in the speech gives hope to all who have been calling for this. The Bill promotes the establishment and implementation of community-based mental health services. Its early enactment in the current sitting of the National Assembly will be a great stride by government in de-institutionalizing mental health services and subsequently decongesting the psychiatry hospital and units in Zambia. The implementation of community-based mental health services is also a step towards reducing the huge stigma attached to mental health problems. This might even reduce the myths around mental health problems. DRW is excited with the Presidential proclamation and gives the President a loud applaud.

What we are waiting for is the implementation of the pronouncement and consequent provision of adequate funding and human resource towards the rolling-out of all that which is advocated in the Mental Health Bill. We also are keen to see the immediate move to begin developing regulations to the Bill for the smooth implementation of its provisions. What is more exciting for DRW is that the Presidential pronouncement is in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals which will be adopted this year as a post-MDDG development propeller. The SDG Goal number 3 is clear on promoting mental health.

The President also brought out the issue of equitable and quality education. We believe that equitable quality education carries the principle of inclusion with it. We call upon the Minister of Education to ensure that that the Ministry of Education begins to promote and implement “true” inclusive education whose systems and implementations processes appropriately include learners with all forms of disabilities. The system should also promote and implement inclusive life-long education. This calls for appropriate teacher training; inclusive curriculum development and implementation; creating safe and accessible infrastructure and school environments; allocation and disbursement of adequate funds and; of course effective involvement of communities.

The President also said “government is reviewing the policies on education, science and technology as well as the technical education, vocational and entrepreneurship training in order to make them more relevant to the current and future needs of our country”. This is very essential. This is a great opportunity for Zambia to ensure all policies governing the education system promote inclusive education and technical and vocational training. Many persons with disabilities are left out by the whole education system because the system is not yet inclusive. This again opens an opportunity to begin tuning our system to the provisions of the coming UN Sustainable Development Goals. Goal number 4 is on ensuring equitable and quality inclusive education for all. The policies should also take into consideration the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which call for inclusive education. Zambia has ratified the Convention and domesticated it through the enactment of the Persons with Disabilities Act of 2012. So, we need to see a system change that will ultimately emerge into true equity, access, achievement by all learners and of course quality. The President directed the Minister to complete the policy reforms by June 2016. We hope this directive is adhered to.

The President called for community based entrepreneurship through co-operatives. This is a great move. It falls into the call for community-based rehabilitation to trigger inclusive development. Community-based entrepreneurship is one way of empowering citizens and this must benefit persons with disabilities who champion community-based rehabilitation. Since DRW has been one of the champions of community-based rehabilitation, we shall now adopt the statement as one of our advocacy issue. We shall stand to ensure co-operatives form part of community-based rehabilitation for persons with disabilities. We take this opportunity to call upon all co-operatives to ensure that persons with disabilities be included in the formation and leadership of any co-operative. We also support the move by the President to move the Department of Co-operatives from the Ministry of Agriculture to the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry. This will encourage the co-operatives to diversify their economic activities.

In his speech, the President touched on the issue of addressing unemployment among citizens especially the youths. This has been a running ‘song’ of the government. It is important to deliberately target youths with disabilities and ensure that they are in decent and gainful employment. This should be in both the informal and formal sectors. Youths with disabilities have got less employment opportunities than their peers without disabilities. Therefore, it is just prudent to develop specific targeting strategies to empower them. Economic empowerment for youths with disabilities should include open up access to start-up capital for entrepreneurship. In view of this, we are in support of the President’s statement that “access to capital is a challenge for most of our entrepreneurs and innovators who wish to establish or grow their businesses”. This is worse for youths with disabilities. So, as measures are being taken to ensure easy access to affordable capital, specific measures should be taken to ensure youths with disabilities are included. Furthermore, in order to empower youths with disabilities, government should practice preferential procurement by prioritizing entrepreneurs with disabilities. Measures should also be taken to build the skill capacity of entrepreneurs with disabilities to produce goods and services that will go at competitive prices.

The President stressed the issue of infrastructure development across all sectors. Since the government is emphasizing inclusive development, it is essential to ensure that all infrastructure, across all sectors, is accessible and safe to persons with disabilities. Therefore, it is important to ensure minimum standards for accessibility are urgently developed. Inaccessible infrastructure is one of the largest barriers hindering persons with disabilities from effectively participate in national development. Such infrastructure is also a form of discrimination on the basis of disability. The issue of accessibility should also affect the transport and ICT sectors.

The issue of building universities in every province is key for national development. This should go with building the capacity of the academic human resource in all these universities to embrace inclusive tertiary education. It is sad to note that the already existing universities are not yet inclusive in terms of infrastructure, training and assessments. The new universities should be inclusive from the onset. Persons with disabilities should find it easy to enroll, study and achieve academic and professional development. 

As we conclude, we call upon the government to expedite the process of launching and implementing the National Policy on Disability. We also urge the government to take keen interest in supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals and quickly adopt them as part of our transformation agenda in our post-2015 national development plans. This will ensure that persons with disabilities play a big role towards achieving our Vision 2030 as a nation.

Signed,

Wamundila Waliuya,

Executive President.

Cell:+260977459925 s