Transcript of Talk by Jose Viera

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Delivered by:
Jose Viera
CEO of World Blind Union
Permanent Representative of the Stakeholder Group of Persons with Disabilities

June 18, 2021

Thank you to the organizers for creating this event together.

I would like to share at least three key elements out of the discussion so far.

The first is that it is clear, out of the report, that we are discussing today, but, also, from other reports and documents related to data and statistics, how invisible people with disabilities are when it comes to data and statistics discussions.

And, that, of course, is indeed an issue because, without making visible this population, we are definitely missing a huge component of any potential planning or policy design process.
But, at the same time, because of the facts that we are not visible, we cannot be part of the discussion.

And, that, actually, connects to the second point I would like to highlight here. For “nothing about us without us” to come true, we definitely need to arrange whatever is necessary to ensure that people with disabilities are meaningfully engaged in the discussion. And, when I say discussion, I mean design implementation and monitoring stages. As long as we continue not doing even more efforts around promoting the people with disabilities-centered approach, when it comes to statistics, we will continue to face the same issues that have been highlighted in the previous interventions. So, if disability is one issue, the lack — or the need of more meaningful engagement with persons with disabilities, is the second element.

The third key element is that, for people with disabilities and their representative organizations to play an active role when it comes to data and statistics, we need to do it from a perspective that will enable people with disabilities and their representative organizations to comment on policy making processes, to influence policymakers, to be at the center when it comes to the design of programs, whatever those programs are related to health, employment, education, etc.

So, by the fact that we are preventing people with disabilities to access world health data, but, at the same time, by not including people with disabilities, in many of the data efforts, we are, in the end, preventing people with disabilities to influence program and policies that have a direct impact in the lives of people with disabilities.

And this is sort of the analogy that I would like to share with you.

If we want to close the sink hole in which we started by including people with disabilities, and then we increase the visibility of people with disabilities, where we are going to get to is basically a stage in which people with disabilities and the representative organizations, can influence and be key players in ALL policy programs and even legal reforms when it comes to the implementation on the rights of people with disabilities.

So if we do understand the situation, studies like the ones that have been presented today, joint efforts like we are seeing across many organizations, universities, governments, etc, I would say that this is the right path to ensuring that no one is left behind.

More capacity building for organizations of people with disabilities, more training and useful tools to equip organizations are definitely preconditions to promote the full inclusion of persons with disabilities.

I will pause here. I will thank again Sophie and all the people involved in this study.

I believe the more we are involved, the farther we can get. I will pass it to Margaret now.