As a result of the Ministerial meeting held in the Cook Islands in October 2009, where the Ministers of all the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS) member countries agreed to endorse the Pacific Regional Strategy on Disability 2010-2015, Palau, through the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs,has invited the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia (UNESCA) and the Pacific Disability Forum to assist the country in developing policies and guidelines toward the ratification of the ICRPD.
According to Berry Moon Watson, Administrator for Family Health of Public Health, while many PIFS countries in the south have either signed or ratified the Convention, Palau and some of its northern pacific neighbors have not.
“It’s not that we don’t have systems here in Palau,” said Watson. “But for us, when it comes to Conventions, we have a tendency to want systems in place first before we go on with the ratification or signing of a treaty.”
Hosted by the Ministry of Community and Cultural Affairs and Ministry of Health (MOH), this workshop according to Watson, is the beginning stage for the ratification of the convention.
Participants of the workshop are government officials and agencies who have to work to create and set those guidelines. Invited Technical Experts are Frederick Miller, Disability Coordination Officer, PIFS; Alastair Wilkinson Regional Adviser Social Development and Planning, UNESCAP, Pacific Operations Centre (UN-EPOC); and Setareki Macanawai, Chief Executive Officer, Pacific Disability Forum.
Watson added that the MOH has a track record in working with other agencies to establish accesses in the community for people with disability.
In a survey in 2002 done by Palau Community College, there are about 1,400 to 1,500 people with disabilities in the community.
“And that is about 10 percent of all the population of Palau,” said Watson. She said that it’s the common percentage of people with disabilities in any population. “So Palau is not so out of range; it’s within what you should expect in any population.”
For the past 40 years, Watson said, Palau has programs and services for people with disabilities. Among those are discounts to services and medications at the hospital and disability stipend for those who meet criteria of needs.
“We also have Special Education geared for children with disabilities,” said Watson. “And those programs go back to the 1960s.”
At the end of the workshop, Watson said, their goal is to be able to draft the national policies on disability that complies with the “Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities, the Pacific regional Strategy, ILO Convention 159 and other regional and international mandates” which will be handed to Palau’s leadership to finally enable the signature and ratification process of the ICRPD.
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