The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) are co-organizing the “Accessible Arab Region- ICT for ALL", to be held virtually on 13 December 2022 from 10:00-13:00 Cairo time. The event will be delivered in Arabic, English and French. Arabic sign language and English captioning will also be available.
The event aims to raise awareness, share good practices and challenges, leverage capacity and encourage regional engagement in prioritizing digital accessibility to build inclusive digital societies and environments for everyone in the Arab region.
Through this event, ITU and ESCWA are launching an invitation to all Member States and stakeholders to jointly identify the ways forward to foster implementation and mainstream digital accessibility, as a means to provide innovative and equitable solutions that shows how technology could ensure inclusiveness and empowerment of everyone, including persons with disabilities. Moreover, the event invites participants to reflect on how to empower all, from young to older persons, to access the digital world effectively and smoothly in benefit for quality of life of everyone including people with disabilities. Finally, the Accessible Arab Region- ICT for ALL event aims to share and discuss the work and initiatives carried out to promote and support the implementation of policies, strategies and resources to ensure inclusiveness of all people including persons with disabilities in the framework of the SDG, CRPD, UNDIS and other related global commitments.
The event serves as a regional knowledge development platform for an open informative and interactive discussions with all interested stakeholders on ICT/ digital accessibility principles that aims to support UN members and regional stakeholders in their implementation/mainstreaming efforts by sharing good practices and challenges, leveraging their capacity in the ICT/digital accessibility related topics while also offering networking and partnership opportunities to facilitate the development of digitally inclusive societies and environments in the region in which no one is left behind.
The event will bring together all relevant stakeholders including, but not limited to, Member states, Private sector, Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs), technology companies in the private sector including startups and SMEs, technology professionals from the public sector, researchers, relevant regional and international organizations.
For inquiries or further information, please contact: Ms. Rouda Alamir Ali, Programme Officer, ITU Arab Regional Office (
rouda.alamirali@itu.int), Ms. Mirna El Hajj Barbar, Programme Management Officer, ESCWA (
barbarm@un.org)
