Consultative meeting on mainstreaming ICTs for persons with disabilities to access information and knowledge

Eighty-nine countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), committing them to ensuring that persons with disabilities enjoy all human rights on an equal basis. A number of the general principles included in the CRPD are directly linked to UNESCO’s mandate.

In order to facilitate the implementation process of the CRPD, UNESCO, in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict), organized a consultative meeting. The major aim of the meeting was to discuss how UNESCO could assist its Member States to meet this international commitment in facilitating social inclusion of persons with disabilities through information and communication technologies (ICTs). The meeting was attended by representatives of the disabled community, IT&T industry, research and educational institutions, non-governmental organizations working in the subject area and United Nations family organizations.

This report provides an overview of the background and rationale for this meeting, and a description of the process for and content of this meeting, as well as the outcomes of this meeting and their implications for action by UNESCO.