Joint EU-Africa Strategy: persons with disabilities included!

Thanks to her tricycle, Weda (Burkina Faso) can make up for her own living

"Africa and Europe are bound together by history, culture and geography as well as by a community of values: the respect of human rights, freedom, equality, solidarity, justice, the rule of law and democracy as enshrined in the relevant international agreements and in the constitutive texts of our respective Unions". This is how the EU-Africa Strategy commences.

Given the strong ties between the two continents, both the European Union and the African Union have decided to strengthen their relations by developing a ‘joint strategy’. The purpose of this Strategy is to develop a political vision and practical approaches for the future partnership between the EU and Africa, based on mutual respect, common interests and the principle of ownership.

LIGHT FOR THE WORLD has actively been involved in the process in order to ensure that persons with disabilities are included in this important Strategy documents. Given the importance of the Strategy in the coming years, the inclusion of persons with disabilities was a crucial step with regard to development cooperation in Africa.

Nassiratou, Burkina Faso, learnt to walk with a crutch, so she can go to school.

As a first step a public consultation was launched by the African Union Commission and the European Commission at the beginning of February 2007. The aim was to gather civil society recommendations on the joint EU-Africa Strategy mainly carried out through an Internet consultation, open to all Europeans and Africans. The approval of an outline of the future joint Strategy by the joint EU-Africa Ministerial Troika Meeting took place on 15 May 2007.

During the Phase of official negotiations, a representative of the Austrian Ministry of European and International Affairs has brought forward our amendments on EU level to include persons with disabilities in the Joint EU-Africa Strategy and the corresponding Action Plan.

On 9 December 2007 the EU-Africa Strategy was adopted at the Summit in Lisbon and we are very pleased that our lobbying efforts have been fruitful: persons with disabilities are included in the Strategy in crucial sections such as health and education. In concrete terms the Strategy aims at "equal access to healthcare and rehabilitation services for persons with disabilities" as well as "universal primary education including for children with disabilities".

For persons with disabilities in developing countries the mentioning in the Joint Africa-EU Strategy thus guarantees the inclusion of persons with disabilities in future initiatives of the EU in the area of health and education. Consequently, the number of persons with disabilities receiving rehabilitation services and the number of children with disabilities obtaining primary education should considerably increase in the future. LIGHT FOR THE WORLD will make sure that these commitments are also being put into action!