UN in Focus: Disability Special Issue_January 2022

I welcome you to this special edition that focuses on Disability Inclusion. In this issue you will read about the UN Zambia Disability Inclusion Strategy, success stories of Persons with Disabilities and highlights from the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

In 2020, the UNCT in Zambia implemented for the first time the Disability Inclusion scorecard. In response to the results of the exercise, we have now developed a coherent disability inclusion process across the UN System in Zambia, covering leadership, communication, operations, and programmes.

Through the Strategy, the United Nations system will systematically embed the rights of Persons with Disabilities into its work, both externally, through programming, and internally, and will build trust and confidence among Persons with Disabilities to ensure that they are valued, and their dignity and rights are respected and that, in the workplace, they find an enabling environment in which to fully and effectively participate on an equal basis with others.

Mainstreaming a human rights-based approach to disability, in combination with targeted measures, will make the concerns and experiences of Persons with Disabilities an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that persons with disabilities benefit equally.

Working in collaboration with different Civil Society and public institutions, we have set up a Disability information sharing, reporting and coordination mechanism at district, provincial and country level. This has supplemented the quest of identifying ways of reaching out to those furthest left behind, finding eradicating stigma and discrimination related to Persons with Disabilities with regards to accessibility of services such as social protection programmes, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, health, education, Gender Equality, food security and Humanitarian actions.

Thank you and happy reading.

Dr. Coumba Mar Gadio