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ADB Holds Disability and Development Workshop

The Asian Development Bank will be holding a Disability and Development Workshop at the Bank's Headquarters in Manila on 13-14 October. The Workshop is co-sponsored by the Government of Finland.

Worldwide, there are over 500 million persons with disabilities, and about two thirds of them live in developing countries. The Asian and Pacific region has by far the largest number of disabled people in the world, and poverty is a major cause of this high incidence. Concern about this led the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) to declare 1993-2002 the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons.

Within the Bank's overarching goal of poverty reduction, the objective of the workshop is to discuss the concerns of the disabled in the region with a view to bringing more people into the economic mainstream, and to promoting equitable access to the benefits of development regardless of nationality, race, gender or disability. The Workshop should make substantive contributions to development initiatives for people with disabilities through better health care, universal education, reduction of conflicts and a lessening of the poverty rate. A particular aspect of the Workshop will be a focus on regional cooperation in support of progress in the cause of the disabled.

The Workshop will involve government officials from Cambodia, Fiji, India, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, and Viet Nam; representatives from ESCAP, World Health Organization, United Nations Children's Fund, United Nations Development Programme, United States Agency for International Development, International Labor Organization, the Disabled Peoples' International Organization and other international nongovernmental organizations; and staff members of the Bank.

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