Government Implementation of the Standard Rules
As Seen By Member Organizations of
Disabled Peoples' International - DPI

Download 'DPI Reports on the UN Standard Rules' as a PDF file (240 KB)

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The Independent Living Institute wishes to express gratitude to Mr. Bengt Lindqvist, UN Special Rapporteur, and Mr. Dimitris Michailakis, for their kind permission to print the previously un-published DPI reply to the Implementation of the Standard Rules.

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© Dimitris Michailakis 1997

Read the Standard Rules Implementation of the Standard Rules as seen by: Governments | ILSMH | RI | WBU | WFD

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Contents

Part I - Summary

Introduction.
General policy.
Legislation.
Accessibility.
Organizations of persons with disabilities.
Co-ordination of work.
Conclusion.

Part II - NGO Replies

Industrialized countries

The Danish Council of Organizations of Disabled People, Denmark.
Groupement Francais des Personnes Handicapées, DPI, France.
DPI, Germany.
National Confederation of Disabled People, Greece.
DPI, Japan.
National Disability Council, Netherlands.
Associacao Portuguesa de Deficientes, Portugal.
Confederacion Coordinadira Estatal de Minusvalidos Fisicos de Espana, Spain.
Handikappförbundens Samarbetsorgan (HSO), Sweden.
Neurologiskt Handikappades Riksförbund (NHR), Sweden.
Hörselskadades Riksförbund (HRF), Sweden
Riksförbundet för Mag- och Tarmsjuka (RMT), Sweden.
ASKIO, Switzerland.

Countries in transition

The Board of Representatives from the Organizations of Disabled People, DPI, Czech Republic
National Federation of Disabled Persons' Associations (MEOSZ), Hungary.
National Diet of Disabled People, DPI, Poland.
The National Organization of the Disabled in Romania, Romania
Alliance of Organizations of Disabled People, DPI, Slovak Republic.

Latin America and the Caribbean

Barnod Inc. The National Organization of the Disabled, Barbados.
Fondo Nacional de la Discapacidad, Chile.
DPI, Costa Rica.
Asociacion Cooperativa del Grupo Independiente pro Rehabilitacion Integral, El Salvador.
Fenadip, Peru.
St. Kitts-Nevis National Association of Disabled Persons, S:t Kitts-Nevis.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Fedération des Associations des Personnes Handicapées du Benin, Benin.
Associacao de Apoio aos Deficientes , Cape Verde.
Lesotho National Federation of Organizations of the Disabled, Lesotho.
Disabled Persons Association in Malawi, Malawi.
National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda, Uganda .

South, East Asia and the Pacific

China Disabled Persons Federation, China.
DPI, India.
National Federation of the Disabled, Nepal.
National Council for the Welfare of Disabled Persons, Philippines.

Introduction

This report analyses the replies to the questionnaire sent not only to the governments of the UN Member States, but also to 600 national NGO's within the disability field. The number of responses from the NGO's was not as high as from the governments of Member States, representing, however, a very interesting material. In this report I will separate, among the total of 163 replies from NGO's, the 33 replies from Disabled Peoples' International (DPI). DPI does not represent any specific disabilities, being a cross-disability organization. It could be classified as an NGO for persons with disabilities, with somewhat more far-reaching claims than other ones.

Part I of this report presents and analyses the results from the NGO's belonging to DPI, which have answered the questionnaire. Each table corresponds to a specific question in the questionnaire (the number of the question is marked). For each question, after the presentation of the results comparisons are made between a) the results from the organization in question and the results, from the total of NGO's responding to the questionnaire, and b) the results from the organization in question and the replies from the governments. In this way we can locate the issues where convergence, or divergence, of views exists, between the particular NGO's and all the NGO's having responded to the questionnaire, and between the particular NGO's and the governments.

The information in Part II is presented in a rather detailed form in order to expose the collected data of the responding NGO's.

The decision to send the questionnaire, not only to governments of the Member States, but also to NGO's of these states within the disability field, proved to be worthwhile. The different perspectives and views indicate a more complex picture of the degree of achievement of each country as to the implementing of the Standard Rules. When the government and one, or many, NGO's give the same answers there is a guarantee of the reliability of the received data, but when, on the other hand, the answers differ many questions arise. For instance: Who knows what about whom? Does the organization for the blind know the conditions for the mentally disabled? Is there a trend that governments give an idealizing description, while NGO's give a pessimistic one? The comparisons in this report are not aiming at indicating the greatest possible differences, but to find out the greatest possible achievements with the standards set out by the Rules. Yet, attention has to be paid to cases where the answers from one and the same country are not concordant. For several questions, the difference between the percentages reported by DPI organizations and governments is ten percent or more. What do such differences tell us?

The answers differ, now and then, on specific details on very essential issues, like what kind of services that are available, and what persons with disabilities are entitled to. That the answers differ, on issues such as the role of the co-ordinating committee, is rather evident, since it is a question of assessing, of evaluating a process between two or more parties. But in case of divergent answers about social and economic rights questions arise. Is there an information gap even among the most prominent spokesmen for persons with disabilities? Do organizations have too small resources in order to keep themselves well-informed? Or do the disability organizations work rather separately from each other; concentrating on their own, specific disability group, due to the complexity of the matter, that is 'disability', is it a too big an issue to keep record of?

The divergence is of course in many cases the result of a different perspective due to different roles: The government is the actor implementing policies within a wide range of issues, while NGO's are experts in a specific field, actors who therefore very well know what is happening in a limited area. The answers from the NGO's , can thus sometimes be the verification, or falsification, of the answers from the government. The government answer giving a more optimistic view than the answer from NGO's could depend on the fact that - being the responsible part for the implementation of policies, conventions and rules, such as the Standard Rules - the government wants to demonstrate that it has carried out its obligations.

By elaborating the specific replies of different NGO's, comparing the answers with the NGO's as a whole - a rather common procedure - and with the governments, one trait has emerged rather unexpectedly: that specific NGO's diverge on one or many issues with the NGO's in general but converge with the answer from the government. In order to explain this, and other interesting findings, further monitoring is needed.


Distribution of NGO's replies belonging to DPI, according to regions

Regions	Frequency	Percent
South, East Asia and the Pacific	4	12,1
Industrialized countries	13	39,4
Latin America and the Caribbean	6	18,2
The Middle East and North Africa	0	0,0
Sub-Saharan Africa	5	15,2
Countries in transition	5	15,2
Total	33	100,0

No replies from DPI organizations were received from the Middle East and North Africa.

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Contents of the DPI Report