[WSIS CS-Plenary] Report on the Global Forum on Disability delivered at the Plenary on 18th November 2005

[Hiroshi Kawamura]

Please find the text of the report on th Global Forum on Disability 
delivered at the Plenary on 18th November 2005 attached in the body of the 
e-mail. Tunis Summit is being closed.
Summit document "Tunis Commitment" and "Tunis Agenda for the Information 
Society" are available at:
http://www.itu.int/wsis/tunis/index.html#documents

Best

Hiroshi Kawamura
WSIS CSB Disability Focal Point

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Report on Global Forum on Disability in the Information Society



Hiroshi Kawamura

Representative for WSIS of the DAISY Consortium



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. Leila 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 $B!H(BTunis Declaration on Information 
Society for Persons with Disabilities, November 18, 2005$B!I(B 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.