Challenges

All Arab countries have signed or ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) and there are growing commitments and policies that countries are putting in place to further ensure the rights of persons with disabilities.

However, Arab countries have noticed the lack of a systematic mechanism to exchange knoweldge, lessons learned, and collaborate among each other. Hence, ESCWA created a platform in 2016 to bring toether decision-makers and technical officers in Arab countries that work on disability inclusion to fill this gap and promote South-South learning . This platform is called the Intersessional Group of Experts on Disability (IGED) and has members from 20 ESCWA member states: Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, State of Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Toward a Solution

The Intersessional Group of Experts on Disability (IGED), provides a platform for national disability experts to collaborate and exchange insights on issues related to disability inclusion, in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Members share their experiences on national disability policies and discuss challenges in coordinating efforts across different ministries and national institutions to ensure comprehensive integration and effective mainstreaming. ESCWA hosts this platform to discuss disability-related research and initiatives, fostering a constructive environment for regional knowledge sharing and collaboration. The IGED mechanism plays a crucial role in promoting disability rights and inclusive policies on a regional scale, which contributes to the overall goal of creating a more inclusive and accessible society for persons with disabilities.

Since its establishment in 2016, the IGED has held nine formal meetings. Its members have also participated in several specialized training seminars and regional meetings or workshops and provided input to national and regional reports. These include research on disability assessment as well as determination, accessibility, independent living, economic inclusion of persons with disabilities, adequate standard of living and social protection, and other aspects of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including national implementation challenges. These activities aim to foster constructive South-South dialogue and generate actionable policy solutions for improving the lives of persons with disabilities in Arab countries. The South -South exchange was also manifested in peer learning whereby two IGED member states undertook visits to learn more about the experience of other members in the area of disability, especially the enactment of new progressive laws and shifts from institutionalization to Community-based Inclusive Development as per below:

• Country Pairings: Jordan developed a new disability inclusion law in 2017 (link of law) and during second and third annual IGED meetings in 2017-2018 member countries expressed their positive assessment of the law, seeing it as a model for the rest of the region. Hence, ESCWA supported the pairing of Jordan with Palestine and Iraq to help those countries who wanted to assess their own national disability laws and, identify gaps, draft amendments, and suggestions to better implement existing laws in various action plans and strategies. Both countries benefited from the pairing and reported it as a positive learning experience that later informed legal amendments and policy changes.

The South- South exchange was also exemplified during the COVID crisis whereby IGED members exchanged good practices in the area of mitigating the effects of the pandemic among persons with disabilities as per below:

• Mainstreaming disability in disaster and emergency responses: During the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, ESCWA convened an exceptional IGED session in coordination with the League of Arab States and other partners to support countries on disability inclusive responses in emergency settings (link to meeting). Countries agreed that they had gaps in technical knowledge and planning to mainstream disability in their responses to COVID-19 and any other possible emergency in the future, hence, it was decided that a regional guide was needed to fill this gap. ESCWA worked on developing the technical guide, in partnership with LAS, and convened consultations with countries to review and finally endorse it.