24^th January, 2022

 

Global Disability Summit 2022

Commitments to create a more Disability Inclusive Zambia – Delivering Quality Health

 

Many persons with disabilities in Zambia still bemoan the quality of health they receive in comparison with other persons who do not have disabilities. They believe that the quality of health they receive is not of the same standard as that delivered to persons without disabilities. This is a paradox because persons with disabilities attend the same health facilities, with the same health professionals and maybe the same medicines and other medical services.

Anyway, what persons with disabilities and their representative organisations are saying is that they encounter different barriers that tend to hinder them from accessing the quality of health they deserve. In simple terms, persons without disabilities do not encounter any of the barriers persons with disabilities encounter. Thus the difference in the quality of health they receive. It is therefore very important that the Government of the Republic of Zambia redresses this discriminatory situation by exhibiting accountability to its international obligations, under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the Global Disability Summit 2022.

The government has  an opportunity to begin positioning itself strategically in terms of fulfilling its international obligations. This is in as far as implementing with the promise of leaving no one behind. This will be actualised by having the government to sign up to the Global Disability Summit 2022 by expressing specific, ambitious and deliverable Commitments on the provision of quality health to persons with disabilities.

This article will specifically and deliberately focus on some Commitments to deliver quality mental health services to all, but in particular persons with mental conditions and indeed associated psychosocial disabilities. The GDS22, to which the government should commit itself to will be held from 15^th to 17^th February, 2022 in Oslo, Norway. It will be held virtually, so many persons have got any opportunity to attend.

At this point in time, let us dwell straight into the Commitment the Organisation of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) are proposing that government upholds and dedicate itself to during the GDS22 and thereafter during implementation. The Commitment is picked among other Commitments from the thematic field of health. The OPDs propose that the government Commitment should be, “by end of 2023 Ministry of Health will appoint the Mental Health Council, with a commensurate budgetary allocation and action plan”. This Commitment is drawn from the Mental Health Act of 2019. The object of the Act includes the partial domestication of the CRPD. So, this is where the government should pick it from. Committing to appoint the members of the Mental Health Council and establishing its secretariat is about implementing the Act. Basing our reference to the object of the Act to domesticate the CRPD, the implementation of the Act is a stride to the implementation of the CRPD. It is also about actualisation of the SDGs, especially Goal 3, which includes indicators on mental health. It is in this perspective that the government should interpret its dedication to this Commitment because it contributes to fulfilling its international obligations on the CRPD and the SDGs. Its own proposition of leaving no one behind is also amplified and strengthened.

The Commitment, by government, to appoint the Mental Health Council members carries with it many implications directly related to the principles and spirit of the CRPD. This can be seen in the functions of the Council as provided for by the Mental Health Act 2019.

 

Of course the first function is to protect the rights of a mental patient. This brings to light that the government recognises and respects the rights of persons with mental conditions and associated psychosocial disabilities. This recognition is all about realising that persons with mental conditions are rights holders, who must be allowed to make their own decisions and participate in life activities on an equal basis with others. It is essential here that this function of the Council in the Mental Health Act is specifically addressing rights related to accessing mental health services. In a real perspective, persons with mental conditions and psychosocial disabilities’ rights spread across all life domains like education, employment, physical health, financial services, housing and relationships. These are the same rights as those of other persons with disabilities and of course persons without disabilities. This perspective should never be lost.

 

The other important function of the Mental Health Council, the government should be alert to as it commits itself to appointing members of the Council, is to facilitate and promote communication about mental health issues, including the elimination of stigma and discrimination against a mental patient. Again, this leans on the rights of persons with mental conditions and psychosocial disabilities to be protected from stigma and discrimination on the basis of their disability. The promotion of communication about mental health issues just as already stated cuts across the recognition and respect of all the rights of persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities across all life domains. This promotion will eventually contribute to reducing stigma and discrimination. This Commitment is very important because of the aspect of reducing stigma and discrimination, which is a core thematic area of the GDS.

 

The Commitment by government to appoint the Mental Health Council members will strengthen the other function of the Council of facilitating the mobilisation of resources for mental health services in Zambia. Mobilisation of resources for mental health services and other disability inclusion programmes is a Commitment on its own and the GDS22 emphasises this aspect of mobilising resources for the implementation of the CRPD. Remember, as we go on to argue, we are drawing these functions of the Mental Health Council to which the government should commit itself to appoint its members from the Mental Health Act of 2019. So, this is a low-hanging Commitment for the Government of Zambia because it is already prescribed in law.

 

The other function of the Mental Health Council, to which the government should commit to appoint its members, is to facilitate the development and implementation of community-based mental health services and promote de-institutionalisation of persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities. This is a key element of the CRPD on the right for persons with disabilities to be included in the community while promoting personal liberty. Living within the community also allows persons with mental conditions and psychosocial disabilities to access other rights related to education, employment, housing, financial services and relationships. This gives an opportunity for individuals to live independently or chose where to live and with whom they should live with.

The Mental Health Act provides for the composition of the Council which includes a person with a psychosocial disability coming from a representative organisation of persons with psychosocial disabilities. This increases the participation of persons with psychosocial disabilities in advocacy efforts in national CRPD accountability spaces while promoting the promise of leaving no one behind. It is in this view that by Committing to appointing the members of the Mental Health Council, the government is greatly contributing to the implementation of the CRPD and the actualisation of the SDGs. So, this Commitment is valuable, specific and deliverable.

As the government commits itself to appoint the members of the Council, it should remain upright to ensuring that the appointment is gender sensitive. The issue of the participation of women with disabilities should never come and remain at the back of the thoughts of any government, including the Government of Zambia. This is critical.

 

While this article concentrated on the Government Commitment to appoint the members of the Mental Health Council, it should not be swayed away from the other important Commitments it should subscribe to in terms of providing persons with disabilities with the same range, quality and standard of free or affordable health care and programmes as provided to other persons, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and population-based on  public health programmes as provided for by the CRPD. This should include the Commitment to provide health services as close as possible to people’s own communities, including in rural areas. The Commitment to train health professionals to provide health services while taking into consideration the concept of disability inclusion should remain upheld by the government.

Conclusively, the Government of the Republic of Zambia carries a huge chunk of respect when it comes to putting into place legislation meant to promote and protect the rights of persons with disabilities. This respect should always be reflected in all its deeds and consistent Commitment to fulfil its international obligations towards implementing the CRPD. Zambia shall always strive to go first in promoting and protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. Correct?

 

Wamundila Waliuya,

Disability Rights Watch.

24^th January, 2022.

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18^th January, 2022

Global Disability Summit 2022 (GDS22)

Commitments to create a more Disability Inclusive Zambia – Delivering Quality Inclusive Education

Questions are being raised around the possibility of having quality inclusive education in the quest to create a disability inclusive Zambia. Such questions do not have immediate answers of “yes it is possible” or “no it is not possible”. Maybe this is why it is still difficult to explicitly define ‘inclusive education’ with a one world-wide accepted definition. Therefore, we shall by all means sway away, from attempting to define inclusive education. But, straight away, inclusive education is not about placing children with disabilities in the same classroom as other children without disabilities. No!

With this approach of examining the concept of creating a disability inclusive Zambia and strongly standing for it, we shall remain simple and non-academic and non-scholarly in our argument. This argument is meant to encourage the Government of the Republic of Zambia to sign up to the GDS22 with specific and deliverable Commitments on delivering quality inclusive education.

Quality inclusive education is still a controversial necessity and excellent component of creating a disability inclusive Zambia and it is inevitable in this growing era of leaving no one behind. No learner must be left behind. No learner at all! Not even on the basis of whatever impairment they have.

Zambia is a well ‘nourished and fertilised country’ for the progressive implementation of sustainable quality inclusive education. This is so because it already has non-discriminatory pieces of legislation that expressly protect the rights of children with disabilities from any form of distinction, exclusion and restriction in accessing general education on an equal basis with other children without disabilities. Zambia has got a Constitution that prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability. Zambia has got the Education Act of 2011 and the Persons with Disabilities Act of 2012 both of which prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability when it comes to enrolment, retention and progression in the education system. The country has been promoting quality inclusive education in its Fifth, Sixth and Seventh National Development Plans. Its Eighth National Development Plan (draft) is also strong on the promotion of quality inclusive education. All national budgets for the last five to six years are explicit on promoting and standing for inclusion and leaving no one behind. This includes disability inclusion in the education system and leaving no child with a disability behind.

Zambia is blessed with pilot programmes on the implementation of inclusive education which hungrily wait for scaling-up. What an already given base for drawing sustainable Commitments on quality inclusive education by the Government of the Republic of Zambia. The government cannot deliberately shy away from this glorious gift of an open and friendly environment of ‘easy-to-adopt situations towards creating a disability inclusive Zambia with an effective and sustainable inclusive education system. Will the government shy away? No of course!

The Government of the Republic of Zambia may actually base its Commitments on what it already holds in its warm and promising disability inclusive arms. Commitments on quality inclusive education should be based and focussed on ensuring that all schools and other learning institutions are physically accessible to all children with disabilities; all teachers, including teachers with disabilities, are progressively trained and equipped with teaching skills to manage, monitor and evaluate an inclusive education system in which full and effective participation of children with disabilities in quality learning is taking place. This should be accomplished side-by-side with achieving artistic, life, emotional, intellectual, and social and academic/skills development on an equal basis with other children without disabilities. This calls for Commitments for a step-by-step review of the teacher education curriculum that will eventually graduate teachers who are ‘disability inclusive’ and highly skilled to sustain the progressive growth and development of true inclusive education through a more collaborative and participatory approach. Such a collaborative and participatory approach demands for real conviction of the families and community structures around the schools. This real conviction of the families and community structures must be tagged with a concrete pillar of sustainability arising from the principles of community ownership, community mobilisation and education, passionate voluntarism, child-education-rights first, child-quality-health first and full teacher support and motivation. This is all addressing the family and community structures.

The burden of actualising and developing all this work with the families and community structures will be borne by the government through a sustainable local resource mobilisation drive. The local resource mobilisation drive will be anchored on local development and modernisation of teaching and learning materials, decentralised recruitment of both trained and volunteer teachers that includes parents, raising and maintenance of accessible and climate resilient school infrastructure. This will further cement itself on the effective participation of parents and community leaders in the management of the schools in a more strategic structure that may mirror a Parent and Teacher’s Association but more of a Collaborative School Inclusion Committee. This GDS 22 Commitment by government is crucial because it requires adequate budgetary allocations and prudent management of resources. Otherwise, it is apparently an unavoidable Commitment for the government.

In view of the above, Commitments to  support the family and community structures must be made to ensure the structures receive adequate allocation and disbursement of financial resources to facilitate for the acquisition of modern inclusive assistive technology and devices, accessible learning materials like books in accessible formats, e.g. Braille for children with visual impairments, appropriate teaching and learning languages like sign language with the recognition of the deaf culture for children who are hearing impaired, finances and other technical supplies to repair and maintain the teaching as well as learning equipment, including computer based learning technology.

The drive towards quality inclusive education will require a National Education Policy that depicts and promotes the implementation of sustainable inclusive education. The Ministry of Education already developed and published a Guide on Special and Inclusive Education. The inclusive education components of this Guide can easily be adopted to build a strong policy on education which reflects clear disability inclusive principles. The Commitment here is to have the 1996 National Education Policy – Educating our Future reviewed to adopt a more child rights based policy with clear deliverables in its implementation plan accompanied by a reflective budget of the actions. This GDS 22 Commitment is also inevitable because the review of the 1996 education policy is long overdue.

Awareness raising is a key component of the drive towards creating a disability inclusive Zambia with the contribution of quality inclusive education. Inclusive education in Zambia seems to be a very controversial concept. This is all because of the inadequate understanding of its principles and implications as an educational model based on education as a right for all. This is why the government should commit itself to provide quality inclusive education at all levels starting from early childhood education to tertiary and life-long education to cater for all. In order to strengthen this, government should commit itself to providing free education to children with disabilities at all levels. The government should also commit itself to provide reasonable accommodation to all children with disabilities in the education system. In order for this to be accepted and sustainable disability awareness should be delivered to the communities, teachers, school management and other professionals and workers within the education system.

The implementation of quality inclusive education requires regular update of disaggregated data on the different categories of children with disabilities in and out of school, the ages and sex of all the children with disabilities. It is also essential to have data on children without disabilities within the same schooling system. This is one easy Commitment the government can carry to the GDS22.

It is very important for government to engage in international cooperation for the effective implementation of quality inclusive education. Exchange of learning and experiences in the implementation of quality inclusive education will bring a ground for delivering what we would like to deliver in advancing inclusive education for the creation of a disability inclusive Zambia. International cooperation may extend to support in terms of human, financial and technical support. Why not sign up to a Commitment to enhance international cooperation for the development and implementation of quality and sustainable inclusive education in Zambia? This will be good for a disability inclusive Zambia.

Remember, this article is not on how to implement inclusive education. It is to encourage the Government of the Republic of Zambia to sign up to the Global Disability Summit 2022, take the leadership to adopt more specific and deliverable Commitments on quality inclusive education to contribute to creating a disability inclusive Zambia. Zambia is known to be a peaceful and democratic country. The question remains, is peace and democracy real peace and democracy in an exclusive society? We believe it’s NOT! Zambia must remain a beacon of peace and democracy. Zambia must remain a beacon of disability inclusion. Let us build this disability inclusion drive through the contributions of quality inclusive education.

As we conclude, it is essential for the government to realise that these GDS22 Commitments are not a stand-alone programme to advance disability inclusion. The Commitments will assist the government to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and leave no one behind. The Commitments also help the government to enhance its efforts on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). So, it is not in vain. Quality inclusive education aims at having more children with disabilities acquire a higher quality of education.

Signed,

Wamundila Waliuya,

Director.

 

Global Disability Summit 2022 - Commitments to create a more Disability Inclusive Zambia

 Zambia is one of the prominent and outstanding countries that have committed to respect and fulfil the rights and fundamental freedoms of persons with disabilities. This is demonstrated through the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities just within two years from the time it came into force in 2008.

After the ratification of the Convention, the country went on to domesticate it through the enactment of the Persons with Disabilities Act of 2012. The National Policy on Disability was also developed to guide the implementation of disability inclusive programmes. Furthermore, the government went further to enact the Mental Health Act of 2019 which partially adopts some of the principles of the CRPD to advance the delivery of mental health services with the human rights perspective with the recognition of the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities.

It is essential that these efforts to promote disability inclusion in Zambia should be appreciated and recognised. On the other hand, the actual and practical aspects of effective disability inclusion whereas the welfare and livelihoods of persons with disabilities are seen to improve towards a status of socio-economic parity with the rest of the average Zambians are yet to bear desired fruits. This is all the reason why the Government of the Republic of Zambia should scale up its efforts to embrace disability inclusion by signing up to the Global Disability Summit of 2022 with specific and deliverable Commitments.

The Global Disability Summit 2022 (GDS 22) will run from the 15^th to 17^th February, 2022 in Oslo, Norway. It should be noted that the GDS is part of the global efforts to actualise the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Therefore, the Summit will mobilise efforts for the implementation of the CRPD. The Summit will also strengthen the realisation of the principle of leaving no one behind and on building back better and more inclusively post-pandemic.

This is a great opportunity for the government to sign up to the Summit and make specific Commitments on its promise to implement the CRPD. The Commitments the government will make will also directly reflect its thematic proposition on the implementation of its national development framework of leaving no one behind. The Commitments will further strengthen the government drive on building back better and more inclusively post-pandemic. Therefore signing up to the GDS 22 with ambitious Commitments is a reasonable stride towards disability inclusion in Zambia.

The opportunity is now for the Government of the Republic of Zambia. Why? Zambia is in a “political new dawn” period which is based on building on stronger democratic principles, inclusion and leaving no one behind. The new dawn is all about the political sunrise being driven by the administration of the United Party for National Development (UNDP) whose entry to an equal Zambia is premised on an inclusion agenda.

In our perspective as Disability Rights Watch (DRW) inclusion is no inclusion at all without the full and effective participation of persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities must be an unnegotiable integral part of national development. This calls for visible disability inclusion.

But what is disability inclusion? Many institutions, including government usually, unknowingly, misinterpret disability to mean the presence of persons with disabilities in a place, programme or service whether they are playing a meaningful role or not. DRW interprets disability inclusion as a series of practical steps and measures taken by the government to create a more accessible physical environment and to adopt and effect adequate policies and practices that will allow the free and effective participation of all persons with disabilities in day-to-day socially and economically life roles and responsibilities. This demands for positive attitudes among the society, especially those individuals allowed to hold public and political office. In the Zambian setting, disability inclusion means the full and effective participation of all persons with disabilities in all the social and economic sector activities like education, social protection, health, employment, sports and culture without any form of discrimination. It also includes being actively involved in family life including making free choices in relationships and marriage. The government should cement its practical interpretation of disability inclusion on this thinking as it draws up its Commitments towards a disability inclusive Zambia.

So, which specific thematic areas should the government commit itself to at the GDS22 as it collaborates with organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) in Zambia? The Government of the Republic of Zambia does not require a long ‘fishing hook’ to clarify what specific thematic sectors it should draw its GDS22 Commitments on. It already holds commitments in its previous and current National Development Plans and policies. So, it is not about re-thinking and re-creating a new will. The will already exists.

The clear Commitments are around inclusive education, inclusive employment and livelihood, access to health, science and technology, climate change and humanitarian action. The government is already carrying strong commitment on gender equality with much focus on girls and women. In all these thematic sectors, the government should have a huge Commitment to engage persons with disabilities through their representative organisations through transparent and effective consultations in all matters of development and in all aspects of life. This is the master key to creating a disability inclusive Zambia! A disability inclusive Zambia will contribute to creating a more equal world. An equal world is a world for all! It is not only about persons with disabilities.

The Government of the Republic of Zambia and persons with disabilities now are in grip of this great opportunity to making Zambia a true inclusive democracy. This will be reflected in the leadership the government will take at the GDS22 through the making of more ambitious and deliverable Commitments with persons with disabilities in the forefront of inclusive development. The government should be clear on the strong inclusion of girls and women with disabilities throughout the development process of making of the GDS22 Commitments. Usually left-out groups of persons with disabilities like children with disabilities, persons with mental and intellectual disabilities; persons with albinism, deaf-blindness, autism, multiple disabilities should actively be involved and their voices heard and taken into consideration for the GDS22 Commitments. Then, we shall be heading towards creating a real disability inclusive Zambia. A real equal world.

The implementation of the CRPD is critical for creating a more disability inclusive Zambia. Zambia strides to be a more dignified country. A dignified Zambia stands for the respect of inherent dignity for all! The respect for inherent dignity for all means the respect for inherent dignity for all persons with disabilities. Therefore Zambia believes in inclusive dignity! Inclusive dignity creates a highly dignified disability inclusive Zambia. The government commits itself to create a more disability inclusive Zambia. Only then shall the people of Zambia will stand and sing of Zambia proud and free. Only then shall all persons with disabilities feel included in the “One Zambia: One Nation: slogan of dignity and real humanity! A disability inclusive Zambia is for TODAY!

Wamundila Waliuya,

Director,

Disability Rights Watch

13^th January, 2022.