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Section One: What is the Implementation Toolkit and how
do I use it?
What is the Implementation Toolkit and how is it relevant
to DPI’s work?
- DPI’s commitment to the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities
At our Sixth World Assembly in Sapporo, Japan (Sapporo
Declaration), and at subsequent regional and national meetings,
DPI members committed to fully supporting the work to draft the Convention
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). To this end, DPI
members were active at all stages of the drafting negotiations at
the United Nations (UN): attending all meetings at the UN; participating
in drafting and policy paper initiatives; hosting side events at
the UN to ensure that the DPI human rights perspective was included
in the drafting; holding consultations in our member countries and
regions; and helping to provide a cross-disability perspective through
the sharing of the lived experiences of our members from around the
world. Now that the negotiations have been completed and the CRPD
has been adopted by the UN General
Assembly, the time has come for
us to continue to examine how we can contribute to the successful
implementation of the Convention.
As our first priority, DPI developed the Ratification
Toolkit, an
interactive resource guide designed to assist DPI members in their
work to encourage every country to become a States
Party to the CRPD.
If your country is not yet a Party to the CRPD, and if you have not
already used the Ratification
Toolkit, we recommend that you refer
to that resource in order to:
- Learn about the Convention – its background and why we need
it
- Learn about ratification – what it is and why we need countries
to do it
- Learn how to design successful ratification campaigns in DPI member
countries and regions
The Ratification Toolkit was developed during the final stages of
the Convention negotiation process, as we wanted to ensure that DPI
members would be ready to engage in signature and ratification campaigns
as soon as possible. Now that the Convention has been officially adopted by the UN and ratification work is underway, it is time to consider
how we can successfully implement the Convention in every
country! For this purpose DPI has developed a new interactive resource
guide, which we call the “CRPD Implementation Toolkit.” In this Toolkit
you will be able to:
- Learn about the Convention – what the new Convention is
and what it means for persons with disabilities around the world
- Learn about implementation – understand what we will be
implementing
- Learn how to design successful implementation campaigns in DPI
member countries and regions
It is important to note that this Toolkit is not intended
to be an authoritative or detailed interpretation of the content of
the CRPD. How the Convention is implemented will be slightly different
in each country, and over time questions will arise regarding the content
of the Convention and how it should be interpreted. This is a normal
process and one that all human rights treaties go through. Disability
advocates will work with governments and the Convention’s monitoring
body (the Committee on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities) in
order to find answers to these questions that live up to the spirit
and objectives of the Convention. As we are only at the beginning of
this process, the materials provided in this Toolkit are not intended
to pre-empt any of these questions or answers. Rather, these materials
are intended to help you and your organization familiarize yourselves
with the CRPD and understand how you can start to make the content
of the Convention a reality in your country.
- What’s inside the Implementation Toolkit
You will find a variety of resources to help you plan and put into
action your own implementation campaigns:
- Background information – explaining important concepts and
giving historical perspective
- A Glossary – providing definitions of terms
- Exercises – to help you and your organization understand
and apply the concepts discussed in the Toolkit
- Documents – we have gathered many of the important reference
documents here, so that you have easy access to them
- A list of Acronyms for easy reference to full names and titles
Whether you have been extensively involved in the Convention negotiations,
or are just interested in getting involved now, we hope that the Toolkit
will provide you with the information you need to get started in your
work to ensure that your country lives up to its commitments under
the Convention, and that the vision of the CRPD becomes a reality for
all persons with disabilities around the world!
How do I use the Implementation Toolkit?
The Toolkit is divided into four sections:
- User Guide - That’s this section!
- What Is the New Convention and What Does it Mean for Me? A
new convention – A new approach
Here the toolkit will provide information on the historical background of
the CRPD, what it means to address disability in a human rights context,
and why this approach is useful.
- What Are We Implementing? A guide to
deciphering the CRPD!
This section provides basic information on the content of the Convention.
As mentioned above, this is not intended to be a detailed interpretation
of the provisions of the CRPD, but instead an introduction to its structure,
content and concepts.
- How Do We Implement the New Convention?
Finally the Toolkit will provide some practical tools for you to use in planning
and carrying out your implementation campaign.
At the beginning of each section, you will see a box containing what
we hope you will learn from the materials. We strongly suggest that
to begin with, you read the sections in order. Once you are more familiar
with the content, then you can go back to the sections of particular
interest to you. Each section can be reached directly from the Toolkit
homepage, so that you can quickly access the information you want.
Features we have tried to include
The Toolkit is designed to be interactive, meaning that
as you read through the text you can click on the clearly marked hyperlinks
in order to obtain further information as you wish. For example, you
can click on technical terms to see how they are defined in the Glossary.
You can also click on the names of documents in order to go to a copy
of a particular document. To make it easier to find a specific document,
where needed we have grouped them again in resource boxes
at the end of each section, and you can go to a complete listing of
resources from the homepage.
We have provided in the Toolkit the most up-to-date information available
to us at this time. We have also included a few external website links,
so that in the future you will have a means of up-dating information
on certain topics – such as information about the work of the
new treaty monitoring body for the CRPD (known as the “Committee
on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities”) once it has been
established. If you have difficulty understanding something in the
Toolkit or would like to talk about an idea you have for your implementation
campaign, you can contact your Regional Development Officer (RDO).
Their contact information is at the end of this Section.
In each section you will find exercises to help you think
through the concepts discussed and apply them to the specific situation
in your country. You can do these exercises by yourself or in a group
with your colleagues and other disability activists. We also hope that
you will find the Toolkit materials helpful as a starting point when
you begin to prepare your own materials for your implementation campaign.
DPI has put a lot of time and energy into the development of this
Toolkit for our members around the world. We know that it will not
be perfect, and we encourage you to provide feedback directly to us
at the Headquarters Office by completing and submitting the evaluation
form at the end of the Toolkit. We want to learn what has worked and
what we can improve in the future!
We have enjoyed the process of developing this Toolkit, and we hope
very much that it will be a useful tool for you as you work to implement
the new Convention in your country. As you will see there is a lot
of work to be done, and the challenges are many, but we believe that
with careful thought and planning DPI can make a solid contribution
to this next phase of the Convention’s life. Good luck!
Click here to link to Section 2
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