Disaster and Disability in Bangladesh - Behinderung und Dritte Welt

B ERICHTEIncluding Persons with Disabilities in the MDGsThe last decades of the last century saw two important issues surfacing to unprecedented levels of internationalattention: the human rights of persons with disabilities and the need for a sincere scaling up of efforts of sustainabledevelopment. As paramount as both issues are – and continue to be – the linking between one and the otherhas been slow in coming. Importantly, the developments in the realm of human rights for persons with disabilitieshold groundbreaking features for the advancement of development generally. This article will sketch the separatedevelopments, and summarize the latest General Assembly resolution in this realm: Realizing the Millennium DevelopmentGoals for Persons with Disabilities.The Separate(d) IssuesPersons with disabilities and development: oneneed not revert to the scarcely existing data toappreciate that the needs of persons with disabilitieshave to form part and parcel of developmentefforts. Development efforts, which failto include persons with disabilities are not goingto achieve their aspirations and goals.While there are entry points, which enablethe interconnection so as to actually implementdevelopment in an inclusive and accessiblefashion, contemporary development efforts arenot yet acknowledging the need to overcomeexclusion of persons with disabilities. The mostprominent development machinery of theUnited Nations, the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) fail to mention persons with disabilitiesor accessibility and inclusion policies inthe goals as well as the accompanying targetsand indicators for progress.Persons with DisabilitiesThe Convention on the Rights of Persons withDisabilities (CRPD) emerged from a lengthyprocess, which moved the paradigm of curingthe persons (medical model) to needing to‘cure’ societies by overcoming social barrierspersons with disabilities frequently face (socialmodel) for the first time in a core human rightstreaty. Curiously, the origin of disability as awelfare and charity issue also means that thereis a strong tie to the development branch of theUnited Nations. The World Programme of Actionof 1982 and the Standard Rules on theEqualization of Opportunities of Persons withDisabilities of 1993, both viewed as milestonesleading up to the CRPD, are development policydocuments. In addition, the Special Rapporteuron Disability – by way of the Standard Rules – isappointed by the Commission for Social Development,a subcommittee of the Economic andSocial Council of the General Assembly.Importantly, the CRPD, a human rights treatyat heart, does link up with development policyin manifold and important ways. For starters, itenshrines a stand-alone provision on internationalcooperation, a first for the eight core humanrights treaties of the United Nations. Article32 CRPD lays out some of the aspects of developmentwork, all of which need to be accessibleto and inclusive of persons with disabilities.It is noteworthy that the concept of developmentunderlying this provision sketches developmentas a multi-directed effort, whichgoes every which geographic way, including,importantly, South-North. Finally, the importanceof involving the beneficiaries of aid, i.e.persons with disabilities and their representativeorganizations – an obligation elsewhere(Article 4 (3) CRPD) in the CRPD – is also enshrinedhere.Article 11 CRPD – also a historic first – prescribesthe need to ensure that persons withdisabilities and their needs are taken into accountin situations of risk, such as humanitariandisasters. Accessibility for and inclusion of personswith disabilities to poverty reduction programmesis specifically highlighted 1 as part ofsocial security measures.Millennium DeclarationParallel to the evolvement of the rights of personswith disabilities, the development effortsof the United Nations progressed to unknownheights with the creation of the Millennium DevelopmentGoals. The inception of the UnitedNations clearly revolves around developmentas the purpose includes “international co-operationin solving international problems of aneconomic, social, cultural and humanitariancharacter” (United Nations 1980: Article 1).Various development efforts of the UnitedNations culminated at the Millennium Summit,held as part of the opening of the General Assemblysession in 2000. The so-called MillenniumDeclaration (UN A/RES/55/2) reaffirmsthe commitment to establish peace, prosperityand greater justice in the world. The Declarationenumerates a series of eight developmentgoals, commonly referred to as Millennium De-Zeitschrift Behinderung und Dritte Welt 1/201033