REPORT BY MR. Hiroshi Kawamura
Representative for WSIS of the DAISY Consortium
ON GLOBAL FORUM ON DISABILITY IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Thank you Mr. Chairman,
WSIS Disability Caucus held Global Forum
on Disability in the Information Society in Geneva and
Tunis.
The DAISY Consortium organized the first
Global forum in Geneva in December 2003.
The 2nd Global Forum here in Tunis was
facilitated jointly by the DAISY Consortium and the BASMA
Association for Employment of Persons with Disabilities.
The forum successfully addressed Internet
access, education and training, mobile phone technologies,
employment, capacity building, global library of knowledge
sharing, social inclusion, multi-stakeholder partnership,
accessible multimedia for reading and writing, disaster
preparedness, indigenous persons with disabilities, etc, and
adopted the Tunis Declaration.
Thanks to Tunisian warm hospitalities and
support including the opening by the first lady Her
Excellency Mrs. Leïla Ben Ali, the Forum could facilitate
active interactions of all participants including those with
most severe disabilities.
It is my great honor to introduce the
"Tunis Declaration on Information Society for Persons with
Disabilities, November 18, 2005" on behalf of the WSIS
Disability Caucus.
<Tunis Declaration on Information Society
for Persons with Disabilities, November 18, 2005>
Recalling the historic success of the
first Global Forum on Disability and the over all first
phase of WSIS; Being encouraged and moved by the spirit of
the Geneva Declaration on Inclusive Information Society,
WSIS Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action;
Noting, however, with great concern the
difficulty of transforming words on paper into real
actions/implementation, given the fact that the concept of
"inclusiveness" in general often leaves disability aspects
out, causing persons with disabilities to be excluded,
marginalized, forgotten and left behind;
Having high hope and confidence in the
ultimate power of the united force, among persons with
disabilities, our representative organizations our friends
and our empathetic allies of all sectors around the world,
to work for the true inclusive information society,
Therefore, we, participants of the Second
Global Forum on Disability, held during the second phase of
WSIS, on the 18th day of November 2005, in the City of
Tunis, Republic of Tunisia:
1. Call upon all governments, private
sectors, civil society and international organizations to
make the implementation, evaluation and monitoring of all
WSIS documents, both from the first and second phase,
inclusive to persons with disabilities;
2. Strongly urge that persons with
disabilities and our needs be included in all aspects of
designing, developing, distributing and deploying of
appropriation strategies of information and communication
technologies, including information and communication
services, so as to ensure accessibility for persons with
disabilities, taking into account the universal design
principle and the use of assistive technologies;
3. Strongly request that any
international, regional and national development program,
funding or assistance, aimed to achieve the inclusive
information society be made disability-inclusive, both
through mainstreaming and disability-specific approaches;
4. Urge all governments to support the
process of negotiation, adoption, ratification and
implementation of the International Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities, in particular through
enactment of national legislation, as it contains strong
elements concerning information and communication
accessibility for persons with disabilities.
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