Minutes of Audio Conference for the GPDD Task Force on October 31, 14:00 GMT
Participants
- Diane Richler
- Harold Snider
- Jeanine Braithwaite
- Tom Hoopengardner
- Bob Ransom
- Andreas Pruisken
- Francois de Keersmaeker
- Judy Heumann
- Kalle Konkolla (Chair)
- Jane Bettes
- Philippa Lei
- Sundeep Khanna
- Ronald Wiman
- James Mwandha
Not on this call:
- Euphrasia Mbewe
Agenda
- Addis meeting report to be approved
- Updates from working groups (Education, Poverty Reduction – website and Tanzania Work Shop, Disasters, Emergencies and Conflict – Pakistan and possible conference on the issue)
- Categories of participation in the GPDD (please see attached)
- Outreach: A) work plan – who can take on the work - and B) membership
- Meetings
- Work plan – left over issue to be discussed (please see attached)
- What role, if any, do we wan to play in the Disability Decades?
- AOB
1. Addis meeting report to be approved
Corrections to be made:
- Chairing individual sessions will be changed to facilitating individual sessions
- Under Working Groups – Change the language to reflect that there will be a chair from the Task Force and participation from both within and outside of the Task Force. Including the option of having resource persons external to the Task Force
- It will be reflected that Robert Ransom will be changed to Bob Ransom throughout the report
- On page 2 of the document, language will be changed to reflect the membership selection process is based on representational concerns
- In the membership document a change was agreed as to who the Task Force are representing – they are representing the perspectives or viewpoints of certain categories of organizations – this will also be reflected in the reports main text, not just in the “changes to be made…”
With these changes the Report was approved on October 31, 2005
2. Working Group Updates
Education: Update by Diane
Diane participated last week in the OECD Global Forum on education in Santiago, Chile. (Go here for more information)
Participants included ministers of Education and senior officials from both OECD member countries and non-member countries as well as representatives of multi-lateral institutions. A major theme was the relationship between quality and equity in education
The meeting was two days, with 6 plenary sessions, one of which focused on the inclusion of children with disabilities. This session was chaired by Robert Prouty from the World Bank. The speakers were: Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo of the
World Bank, Peter Evans of OECD, the vice minister of education of Panama and Diane.
The next Forum will take place in two years time. The Ugandan minister of education invited the OECD to hold the next Forum in Uganda.
Although the participants in the Forum did not necessarily have either prior interest in nor knowledge of disability issues, there was a strong focus on the importance of including children with disabilities in regular education
To do: James to contact minister of education in Uganda.
Poverty Reduction: Update by Andreas and Francois
Update on the PRSP and Disability project in Tanzania
3 day Workshop immediately after the Addis meeting about participants. Well moderated, well organized and good presentations.
Constructive and focused.
Report available – please contact Andreas if interested
Meeting of implementation committee October, 2005
It was decided to focus on education for the first year – the number of disabled children in school.
A full time coordinator will be hired – funding still not clear
There was a positive discussion with lead economist from the World Bank Tanzania office.
Success depends on the number of inclusive programs in the budget
Detailed report available please contact Andreas if interested
A training program on disability and the PRSP is being developed in collaboration with the African Decade.
Brief update on the webpage – still revising, will send out for review when ready
Brief update on the Disability and PRSP Manual – for more information contact Francois
New title: “Making PRSP accessible!” by Handicap International
The document is on purpose held in separate but complimentary modules, making it easier to adjust it to different settings later on. Background information, stakeholder analysis, entry points, simple/general tools to sensitize media and government, to plan a strategy at all level et cetera. A sourcebook to make the emerging of a process of integration of Disability in the PRSP at national level . A work in progress. A first official version will be published in December 2005 that will need to be refined and expanded in 2006, with more experiences in more countries than only Tanzania.
The importance of keeping each other posted on progress and process in the Working groups was asserted.
Emergencies, Disasters and Conflicts – Update by Harold and Jane
A survey has been sent out to the GPDD listserv as well as to the current contacts (D&D Team database) in the earth quake region.
There seems to be a growing interest in having an international conference on this issue.
Suggestion is to have it at end of next calendar year at the earliest, due to the amount of planning etc. And not the least to the fact that there are currently no funds available for such a conference.
Locations suggested location: Darfur, Thailand, Pakistan,
It was mentioned that CBM has some International training coming up and it could be an idea to link the conference to an event like this. IDDC may be planning something as well. Important to link up with them to do something.
The Sphere Guidelines have recently been made (more) inclusive – this should be promoted further.
One option is to ask the UN to invite to a meeting (not conference), to discuss what need so be done. A very practical oriented discussion, not just theoretical focus on problems but on solutions and who should do what. Next steps should be discussed and this could lead to the above mentioned conference later on.
General agreement that we need some commitments, a manual, more knowledge creation and sharing.
Responses from Tsunami letter have been encouraging – time to follow up.
The crucial importance of training of first responders was again brought to the table. GPDD cannot provide the training but be instrumental in waking up the people who are not doing enough. GPDD will work alongside the organizations which are working on this. Lobbying. Collecting information.
Issue of changes to group:
Who are the Members and chairs. Harold will continue to chair, there will be no replacement co-chair during the time Jane is on maternity leave.
Potentially someone from CBM will join the group
Kalle said he was willing to support the group as is Judy and her team
To do’s:
Judy will find the proper contacts in the UN
Experts “database” to be created. Please send info to the GPDD secretariat on ‘experts’ or resource people working in this area
Send the tsunami letter again, Harold will work with Judy and her team on this
3. Categories of representation in the GPDD
A. The Coordinating Task Force; How do we identify and select potential new members for the Task Force? How can we address the lack of diverse representation on the Task Force (region, gender, disability)? Should we start looking for someone from Latin America? And possibly an additional member from the East Asia region?
Reference was made to the “Washington agreement” (GPDD formative meeting December 2, 2004): the Task Force should not be too big, complicating decision making. Concerns were expressed about the transparency of decision making about Task Force membership. A suggestion to invite an observer rather than a new member was not agreed upon. Senior advisors as an alternative way of addressing the issue of diverse representation – to be discussed later.
There was a consensus that the Task Force should be increased by one member from the Latin American region, ideally a woman with a disability with expertise in development, English speaking, and if possible from one of the categories not presently represented on the Task Force: foundations and enterprises.
To do: Judy will prepare a description of the type of person to look for and share it with the Task Force for feedback before starting a search.
B. Partners, Members and Advisors: in this category the main topic is outreach. Brochure, Generic Power Point presentation, forms that gets the information we need about potential members (“application forms”), timeline and how to. Under here is also the issue of the logo – should we solicit ideas from the listserv on this? And the website, we will look into getting the url/alias: Working Groups and Senior Advisors: Should we look into reaching out to advisors within special interest groups e.g. a private sector advisor in order to develop outreach strategies towards foundations and businesses, how to identify such a person(s)?Should we have working group on media/outreach? A group of professionals who could really pitch the GPDD to relevant sources in the media and in the world of development and foreign aid.
To do: Task Force will send names (potential members and advisors) to the GPDD secretariat and a list will be created. The planning committee will work on this.
! Remember that we as of now do not have any members.
C. Donors: We need to re-engage the donors who participated in December and ensure their active participation in order to engage them in the outreach to other/more donors. Different groups within this category, different strategies; Government, Civil society, businesses, foundations
Ron will think about this. He has sent out reports to the donors on an ongoing basis. There will be a donor meeting in December in Italy. Ron will do a review of donor meetings to see where the GPDD could possibly be added to the agenda.
In general: How can we get disability on meeting agendas. OECD, DAG’s, Regional, Sectoral, PRSP meetings, all kinds of meetings that the GPDD could possibly influence.
So far no clear structure.
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Closing of meeting – remaining items on agenda will be discussed at the next audio conference
New draft of WP – Bob and Lene will work on this and report when ready
Next audio:
November 29, 05