The Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development has developed a four-year national roadmap on local production of standard assistive technologies for Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) in Nigeria.
Speaking Tuesday in Abuja during the unveiling of the roadmap for 2021-2025, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr Nasir Sani Gwarzo, represented by the Director of Humanitarian Affairs, Alhaji Ali Grema, said the ministry was forced to consider local production of assistive devices as imported ones had too many complaints “ranging from poor fitting for end users, lack of comfort to users, high cost and in some extreme cases caused further injury to users.”
He said: “The Ministry, through her Special Needs Department, has continuously made concerted efforts towards improving the lives of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) in Nigeria. These efforts have at different times been aimed at specific objectives to generally fetch better living outcomes for PWDs in Nigeria.
“Prior to this time and as a deliberate effort to meeting the needs of PWDs in Nigeria, the Ministry has been procuring Assistive Technology (AT) for identified PWDs and other PWDs focused NGOs in Nigeria, most of them being foreign AT, either procured directly by the Ministry or donated.
“Conversely, there were a number of setbacks with most of the imported ATs ranging from poor fitting for end users, lack of comfort to users, high cost and in some extreme cases causes further injury to users. The above aforementioned inadequacies propelled the Ministry to start thinking inwards towards supporting local production of these ATs.
“Thus, this led to the constitution and inauguration of a National Technical Working Group (NTWG) on Local Production of Assistive Technologies in the 36 states of the Federation and FCT, as well as the development of a National Roadmap on Local Production of standardized Assistive Technologies for Persons with Disabilities in Nigeria 2021-2025.”
Also speaking, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Senator Adeleke Mamora, represented by the Director, Policy Analysis, Statistics and International Relations, Mr Igili Andrew, advised that effort should be made for the implementation of the roadmap; in order for it not to be a waste of time and resources.
He said: “The Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation has been here from the beginning and part of this process. We have been involved in the roadmap for many years and we are happy to be where we are today.
“Because of our culture in Nigeria, which is not too pleasant, the issue should not just be about having the roadmap, but the implementation. It must be pursued vigorously in a way for the objectives to be achieved. Let it be on record that as we are unveiling the roadmap today, we should have a strategic plan for its implementation.
“I know that The Federal Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation is part of the Technical Working Group for the local production of assistive devices for PWDs, but there should be a committee for the implementation of the roadmap.
“It should not be that we will just come here and our manner will be that five years down the line, the roadmap is gathering dust and not being implemented. So, there should be a rigorous pursuit for the implementation of the roadmap to the letter; so that few years later, we can come together again to evaluate the performance.”
