29 Nov 2016

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Ms Kebonye Moepeng has said there is need to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

When giving a keynote address during the launch of the study on living conditions for people with disabilities, Ms Moepeng said that in the case of reaching out and giving support to People With Disabilities, the government has been somewhat hampered in its efforts by a relative dearth of comprehensive data to better appreciate the varied challenges they face.

She noted that the in-depth study on living conditions for People with Disabilities represents an important advance as its publication will provide the crucial baseline data on the quality of life of People with Disabilities in Botswana that will serve as a foundation for policy formulation and  roll out.

“I am pleased to observe these findings could not have come at a more appropriate and opportune time, given that we are beginning our implementation of our new Vision 2036 as well as the National Development Plan 11”, she said.

Ms Moepeng further said that that the Revised National Policy on Disabilities 2016 is in progress and the revised policy will supplement and be supported by other existing blueprints for serving the PWD community in the different sectors and these include the revised national policy on education, inclusive education policy of 2011, Botswana Land Policy of 2015 and health policy to mention but a few.

For his part, the coordinator for people with disabilities from disability office, Mr Thomas Motingwa said that this study is the first of its kind in Botswana and it targets people with disabilities and at the same time addressing their socio-economic issues.

Mr Motingwa said this study will contribute to the improvement of disabled people’s living conditions in Botswana including the improvement of degree of activity and level of participation and it is also aimed at establishing a broad mapping of the situation for persons with disabilities and to compare with non-disabled.

He further said that the study is valuable for policy analysts and the findings will be availed to the private sector and other stakeholders. He explained that Vision 2036 has not left out People with disabilities. ENDS