National Council on Disability
International Watch Federal Advisory Committee
Conference Call Minutes
May 4, 2006
12:00 P.M. Eastern Time
Roll Call
Welcome
Present
Kathleen Martinez
Joan Durocher
Judy Brewer
Sylvia Caras
Cappie Morgan
Katherine Guernsey
Rik Opstelten
Betsy Valnes
Mark Engman
Victoria Brown
Rosemary Ciotti
John Lancaster
Tapan Banarjee
Rob Horvath
Galina Sergen
Eric Rosenthal
Judi Chamberlain
Judy Heumann
Yerker Andersson
Michelle Magar
John German
Tina Singleton
Arain Nahas
Maria Reina
Amend/Approve the Agenda
Agenda approved.
Update on recent World bank activities (Judy Heumann)
Ms. Heumann stated that the Global Partnership for Disability and Development (GPDD) will be conducting its coordinating council meeting from May 23-26, 2006 in Washington, D.C. She stated that the National Council on Disability has been invited to meet with the Coordinating Council the afternoon of May 25th to learn more about what GPDD is doing.
Ms. Heumann stated that her term appointment will not be converted into an open-end appointment. The Bank has stated that it wishes to hire an advisor on disability and development to help them with operations. Her last day is June 2nd. Ms. Martinez stated that the National Council on Disability wrote a letter asking for a meeting with President Wolfowitz, to ensure that the good work that the Bank has been doing continues. The Council has not yet heard on whether the meeting will be granted.
Ms. Heumann stated that the President=s office continues to have a strong commitment on disability issues and was not involved in the decision that was made. The Bank has been hearing from a number of entities on this issue.
Update on the third meeting of State Department/USAID Federal Advisory Committee on People with Disabilities (Kathleen Martinez)
Ms. Martinez stated that the State Department held its third meeting of its advisory committee on people with disabilities on May 1st with a number of recommendations proposed for the final report by the committee. The report will be submitted to the State Department. The charter is due to sunset June 23, 2006.
Ms. Martinez stated that it took awhile for members to get appointed but as members have worked together the momentum has grown. She stated that she feels that the State Department and USAID are committed to continuing the committee, but it is up in the air whether it will be re-chartered. Ms. Martinez asked Mr. Horvath (USAID)whether he had any thoughts.
Mr. Horvath stated that Ambassador Tobias= appointment in his new position at USAID has engendered quite a bit of analysis as to how the foreign assistance model will look, so it is up in the air. He said there is a lot of value in having the advisory committees.
Mr. Horvath further stated that former Administrator Andrew Natsios (USAID) has retired and the new administrator is Ambassador Tobias, who is concurrently serving as the head of a new department created by the administration, the Department of Foreign Assistance or Foreign Aid. His office is at the State Department and he is at the Deputy of Secretary of State level and is also holding the position of Administrator of USAID. He added that things are in flux over at AID and it remains to be seen how it (AID) will look when the dust settles.
Dr. Andersson stated that he was in attendance at the meeting and noticed that the new Foreign Aid department is considering including an organization of people with disabilities.
Mr. Horvath added that the administration felt that there were too many agencies involved in foreign aid and assistance with little coordination occurring and that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) will likely continue in the same role. He has not heard of any discussions taking place that would change the MCC.
Update on United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD) (John Lancaster and Tapan Banarjee)
Mr. Lancaster stated that USICD will be co-hosting Rehabilitation International=s Assembly in August as well as a one day meeting in advance of the assembly to discuss the newly passed Human Rights Convention for People with Disabilities. He added that they will also be strategizing on how we can start influencing the various countries to sign on and implement the convention. The dates for the meeting are August 26-27, 2006 in New York City.
Mr. Lancaster stated that a letter is being prepared to be submitted to Secretary Rice asking her to speak at the one-day session. USICD is also engaged in its strategic planning process to more clearly define exactly what it is it will be doing in the future and a meeting has been scheduled next week.
Mr. Banarjee stated that at the State Department’s last advisory committee meeting, there was a suggestion made by one of the members that there should be a training session for NGO=s on how to draft proposals for funding by USAID. The meeting in New York with RI and USICD will have over three hundred participants world-wide. Most of them are NGO=s. Mr. Banarjee suggested that a workshop be held where USAID can talk about writing proposals that would be appropriate for consideration of funds from AID.
Update on Worldwide Web Consortium Initiative W3C (Judy Brewer)
Ms. Brewer stated that the web content accessibility guidelines are being updated, the ones that are generally regarded as the international standard for accessibility of web content (westbound sites). Web Cag 1.0 is already being used in many countries and is actually the basis of the web portion of Section 508 right now. Ms. Brewer stated that Web Cag 2.0 is being developed and it covers current more advanced technologies, more precise testing approaches and implementation support materials. This Web Cag 2.0 is now available as a last call working draft with a review period that ends May 31st. We’re hoping that the updated standards will be a convergence target toward the currently somewhat fragmented guidelines for web accessibility in some countries. Use of a single standard for web accessibility actually should accelerate implementation of accessibility of the web and benefit the disability community as well as other parties, like the industry developers as well. Ms. Brewer specified the need for broad comments during this review process.
Ms. Brewer added that a unique aspect of being able to do technical accessibility work inside an industry consortium is that they are right at the table throughout the process. And in fact, the industry developers have been at the table with all of the stakeholder groups including representatives from the disability community much more throughout the process of development of the 2.0 version than the 1.0 version that was done a number of years ago.
Ms. Brewer added that the harmonization of international standards on accessibility has become a very big issue and is currently being driven by industry, so it is important that the disability community play a role.
We should note that Section 508 and Section 255 has been reopened and one of the things that triggered that was interest in exploring the possibility of harmonizing more with the international standards on accessibility that are coming from W3C.
Announcements
With respect to the UN Convention process, Ms. Reina stated that there are 10 groups that are dealing with different articles and have identified some important issues that should be focused on. The issues include legal competency/capability; forced intervention; international monitoring; and international cooperation. She stated that they plan to lobby very strongly to get the definition of disability and other definitions in the Convention. There will be a meeting with the disability community in which the Special Rapporteur wants to present her position and she has asked for advice. There will be a meeting in Spain in July with several committee members to discuss our approach.
Ms. Reina added that from the UN side, governments are expected to have informal consultations at the UN on monitoring and sign-clauses, which were two things that were not solved during the seventh of the ad hoc committee meetings. She stated that Mexico is leading the most important discussion on monitoring and last week the government had its first meeting and decided to allow the NGO=s to participate (not negotiate) so a delegate has been designated.
Ms. Magar asked if she could make an announcement. She stated that before becoming a disability rights attorney she was a disability rights reporter and stated that she will be putting together a TV and radio documentary about the treaty, why it is needed and what it will do. It will be multilingual, sub-titled and include voiceovers so that it can be aired in as many countries as possible. The idea is to get an organizing tool that people can use to publicize the treaty and start a wave of activity in each country to get their government to sign onto the treaty. She added that she was able to contact the UN Press office and they have allowed for photography. She stated that at the end of the documentary there will be a couple of minutes that are blank so that we can insert what phone numbers to call and how to get involved and make it specific in each country.
Dr. Andersson announced that he had ordered a book for $45.00 which talks about children with disabilities throughout the European Union. He will send the title out over International Watch because he thinks it is worth reading if you are interested in international disability issues.
Mr. Rosenthal announced that on May 10th Mental Disability Rights International will be releasing a major human rights report on the situation of children with disabilities in Romania. The report is to place pressure on the EU. There was a terrible problem with orphanages in Romania that was documented and exposed in the 1990s and there was a major international effort to get the kids out of the orphanages. What we have found is that they have done a pretty good job of getting kids without disabilities out of orphanages but they’ve really failed to create a community support system for children or adults with disabilities. And so they are essentially hiding children with disabilities. We found some children in psychiatric facilities in some of the most horrendous life-threatening circumstances I’ve seen anywhere in the world and we also found some institutions for infants with and without disabilities. Romania is up for consideration to be in the European Union so we’re releasing the report ahead of that. Diane Sawyer is heading to Romania to interview the government officials and we should be on Nightline if things go well.
New Business
None at this time.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m. eastern time.
|
