By Chris Agbo,
Disability Rights Advocacy Center (DRAC) has engaged Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) to develop a roadmap towards implementation of the recommendations on the Guidance Note which was designed to enhance the implementation of Disability Act by different Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
DRAC in collaboration with National Commission for Persons with disabilities (NCPWD) with the support of Ford Foundation organized a Two Day Workshop on Capacity Building of OPDs on the Guidance Note for The Implementation of The Disability Act which held on Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th November, 2021 in Abuja.
The Executive Secretary, NCPWD, Mr. James David Lalu ably represented by the Acting Director, Social Integration, Mr. Lawrence Idemudia in his welcome remark said that the Guidance note has provided opportunity for OPDs to create awareness for the implementation of the Act. He also said that the Commission is fully ready to collaborate with OPDs to ensure that the Guidance Note will achieve its set objectives. He urged the OPDs to look at the recommendations critically make inputs that will strengthen the document so that at the end of the exercise, there would be some workable strategies that would enhance the implementation of the Guidance Note.
The Consultant took the participants through the content of the Guidance Note, the recommendations which were drawn from the three main focus areas from Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018 such as Access to Public Infrastructures, Access to Transportation and Access to Social Services.
The Consultant later presented the log frame for Monitoring implementation of the Guidance Note and guided the participants to design roadmap and framework which comprises of the activities to be carried out, timeline of the activities and the organizations responsible for each activity based on areas strength of each OPDs in the workshop.
The participants are expected in their several group form partnerships to carry out these implementation action plans, therefore they should be working with DRAC towards the implementation of the Guidance Note.
