5. Best Practices of the ICT Task Force of TWGDC

As one of best practices in the implementation of BMF targets in the priority area on information and communications, the disability advocacy activities of WSIS carried out by the ICT Task Force of TWGDC with the initiative of Mr. Hiroshi Kawamura and Mr. Monthian Buntan are reported here.

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was held in two phases. The first phase of WSIS took place in Geneva hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10 to 12 December 2003, and 175 countries adopted a Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action. The second phase took place in Tunis hosted by the Government of Tunisia, from 16 to 18 November 2005, and 174 countries adopted the Tunis Commitment and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. Through these two summits, the disability caucus led by Mr. Hiroshi Kawamura and Mr. Monthian Buntan actively participated in the process in order to include a disability perspective in the above-mentioned official documents. The final goal of their activities was to attract the attention of the general public and governments to ICT accessibility at an early stage, as such awareness is essential as the ICT infrastructure is created in developing countries.

Getting involved in the process of WSIS

In May 2002 Mr. Kawamura was invited to a seminar held by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Asian and Pacific Branch to address the needs of people with disabilities. During a presentation by the ITU Secretariat, he learned of WSIS and decided to invite a representative from ITU to the ICT Task Force-organized accessibility seminar held in June 2002. The TWGDC, the Daisy Consortium, the W3C, the Thai Government and the Thai DAISY Consortium hosted the seminar, during which participants learned about the WSIS and developed a clear strategy to move beyond the Asian and Pacific region to a global arena. The ICT Accessibility Seminar proved highly successful in raising this awareness through the sharing of accessibility guidelines in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

A declaration developed and adopted by the participants, and endorsed by TWGDC, was incorporated into the action plan of the Biwako Millennium Framework of UNESCAP, and this was brought to the Asian and Pacific Regional Preparatory Meeting for the WSIS held in Japan in January 2003. Its conclusion has become the basis of the WSIS Disability Caucus recommendation. At the same time it was also reflected in a section of International Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities which was adopted in December 2007.

Awareness Raising Approach

To raise awareness of ICT for persons with disabilities, Mr. Kawamura involved persons with disabilities themselves such as Mr. Monthian Buntan, as mentioned earlier and Ms. Kiki Nordstrorm, who is Chairperson of IDA in WSIS. He also created a mailing list to discuss issues related to ICT for disabled people with the interested people around the world. It was called "real-time virtual international collaboration." As a result of these virtual, real-time group efforts, the concept of universal design and assistive technology. which is very important to everyone. including persons with disabilities. was included in the WSIS official documents. Please see the disability-related text of WSIS in the the Appendix.

Global Forum on Disability in the Information Society

Global Forum on Disability, an official WSIS event was held during the WSIS both in Geneva in 2003 and in Tunis in 2005. It was organized by Disability Caucus. These forums 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 gave opportunities to speak of the needs of disabled people in relation to developing and promoting ICT. At the Eighth Plenary Meeting of the Tunis Summit there were reports from Multi-stakeholder Events of WSIS. And Mr. Kawamura reported about the great success of the Global Forum and the declaration on behalf of the disability caucus at that session.

Tsunami Conference in Phuket, Thailand

After the Summit, the International Conference on Tsunami Preparedness of Persons with Disabilities was held on January 11 and 12 in Phuket, Thailand where a powerful tsunami struck in December 2004, taking the lives of many people. The conference was co-hosted by DAISY Consortium, Asia-Pacific Development Center on Disability (APCD), the Council of Disabled People of Thailand (CDPT), National Electronics and Computer Technology Center, Thailand (NECTEC), Thailand Association of the Blind (TAB Group), DAISY For All Project Thailand (DFA Thailand), Asian Disaster Preparedness Center and Thai Autism Vocational Center.

The purpose of this conference was to establish an international networking for Promotion of Tsunami Preparedness of Persons with Disabilities in the context of the WSIS Plan of Action implementation by sharing information on the following: the needs of Persons with Disabilities for Tsunami Preparedness with special attention to the various components of individual preparedness such as logical understanding of tsunamis, accessible communication channels for warning, and planned/confirmed evacuation routes: the most effective Tsunami preparedness promotion activities that meet the requirements of persons with disabilities: on-going Tsunami Disaster Prevention/Mitigation initiatives at the local and international levels: and initiatives for bridging the digital divide in the area of disaster preparedness of persons with disabilities as implementation of the WSIS Plan of Actions.

All the people attending the conference made sure that they could do some collaborative work to promote disaster preparedness for persons with disabilities. More people and related agencies are expected to join this network to work together and address this important issue as a result of the conference.

Almost all the records of activities by the WSIS Disability Caucus and the major official documents of the WSIS are available on the home page of the WSIS at the website of the Japanese Society for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities.
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The above are considered as some of best activities related to the promotion of ICT for persons with disabilities.

For the present. this report only focuses on this one outstanding activity, but it is sincerely hoped that information on other effective practices will be collected and put on the DINF (../../index_e.html) site in the future.