07 Mar 2019

Despite the delay to sign and ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), Botswana is reported to be far much ahead with implementation.

Principal disability officer in the National Coordinating Office of People Living with Disability, Ms Thapelo Moalusi revealed that 99 per cent of countries in Africa had not yet ratified the convention adding that Botswana was on the right track. 

She said the President’s recent attendance of the United Nations conference was to make the point that Botswana was ‘in the convention’.

Ms Moalusi said there was still need to level the ground first before they could accede to the convention. She said the country should have a strategy and legislation in place on people living with disabilities hence the engagement of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as a partner. 

She was hopeful that before the end of the year, everything would be in order.

Ms Moalusi, was responding to a comment from Ngami Voices for People Living with Disabilities, chairperson, Mr Edwin Phalane during meeting to consult stakeholders on the draft disability framework currently being developed by the Botswana Chapter of the UNDP.

Mr Phalane wanted to know when the country would be ready to sign and ratify the convention, stressing the need to domesticate the CRPD.

The CRPD and its optional protocol were adopted on 13 December 2006 and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. 

The convention entered into force on 3 May 2008 and it adopts a broad categorisation of persons with disabilities and reaffirms that persons with all types of disabilities must enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

UNDP, she explained, had financed the formulation of the strategy and the legislation. 

Both the strategy and the legislation, she said, would look into issues of accessibility covering a wide range of issues related to people living with disabilities.

Ms Moalusi explained that initially, they were given the go ahead to ratify the convention, but Parliament advised them to first clean up the framework, hence the consultations with different stakeholders to solicit their views.

She said Botswana could have ratified the convention in  September last year, but the question was “are we clean to do so hence the delay”.

Consultation to solicit ideas to incorporate in the drafted framework started last year October. 

Commenting on her presentation, some stakeholders expressed  the wish for  government to speed up the process for the benefit of the disabled society.

Contributing to the draft framework, they called for the establishment of a ministry responsible for issues of people living with disabilities arguing they currently lacked leadership, commitment and ownership because disability was not a core mandate.

They noted that only the national coordinating office and some non-governmental organisations were responsible whereas there were no district strucures to handle disability issues.

PLWDs suffered from numerous explicit and implicit discrimination which could be addressed by the establishment of such as ministry, they said.

Expressing appreciation  for efforts made by district commissioners’ offices, they were insufficient as they were also overwhelmed by other work commitments. 

They also called for detailed research on PLWDs conducted by different ministries in line with their duties so that they could make sound decisions regarding  disability issues.

They said there was no research informing issues of PLWDs as it had been reported that the national coordinating office depended on census information,  which came every 10 years. Ends