September 24, 2008
Economic Development & Disability: Central to the Mandate of Inclusive Tourism
"The Millennium Development Goals can be met by 2015, but only if all involved break with business as usual and dramatically accelerate and scale up action now." - Kofi Annan
While the Rolling Rains Report daily advocates for inclusion in the practice and policy of the tourism industry it does so knowing of the tremendous gaps in opportunity and income that are often painfully apparent firsthand to travelers with disabilities and those with disabilities in the receptive nations.
A strong global network is working to tackle disability as a development issue.
To coincide with this week's high level meeting in New York on the Millennium Development Goal (MDGs),
IDDC, (International Disability and Development Consortium) and the Millennium campaign are launching a new web site on disability and the MDGs:
From the site:
What is the problem?The Millennium Development Goals have the potential to make life better for billions of people in the world’s poorest countries. Yet when they were established by world leaders in 2000 they left out one in five of the world’s poorest people. This is not as surprising as it sounds. Disabled people have consistently faced discrimination and disadvantage, which is why disabled people are one of the largest single groups of excluded and chronically poor people in the world.
Without including disability in plans for tackling poverty the MDGs stand little chance of success. Disability is currently not included in indicators and targets set for the MDGs and disabled people are often excluded from international and national poverty reduction plans.
The site's main objective is to raise awareness among the general public
and NGOs /governments of the of the need for the MDGs and poverty
reduction programmes to address disability poverty.
The site is a work in progress and IDDC wants to link it to as many
other sites, sources and organisations as possible.
See:
Posted by rollingrains at September 24, 2008 05:52 PM