Promise, strategy and future
The launch last week of Malta’s National Strategy 2021-2030 on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ‘Freedom to Live/ Freedom to Live ‘, was not just another election promise fulfilled to help tick another box of the manifesto. While fully confirming the government’s unwavering commitment to social inclusion, equality and well-being, it is an unequivocally targeted strategy to establish a better future for all persons with disabilities in Malta and Gozo.
The strategy sets out the best way for the Maltese disability sector to give solid direction through plans to be implemented by 2030, the year identified by the United Nations for the implementation of its Sustainable Development goals.
However, we can hardly expect to submit such an ambitious strategy without a public consultation process and the invaluable input of all stakeholders, from people with disabilities themselves and their families, industry professionals, academics, NGOs and agencies. whose dedication to the cause was of great importance for the determination of the needs on the ground.
Malta now has a roadmap to achieve, not without its challenges but full of new opportunities to eventually strengthen all that has been achieved over the last eight years. When Malta ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2012, it was committed to implementing the key principle behind the Convention – ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us’.
Two years later, just a few months after taking power, we presented a National Policy for People with Disabilities, a worthy forerunner of the ‘Program’.Freedom to Live/ A Living Freedom Strategy, which we now seek to achieve with its 13 objectives, each linked by 63 different and outdated actions.
No less important is the establishment of a national coordination structure, one of the obligations under the United Nations Convention. It will oversee and monitor the implementation, at national level, of all key obligations in the convention, which means that it will play a key role in ensuring a coordinated approach in the implementation process and implementation procedures. follow.
To further build muscle with this nine-year project, a legally sanctioned forum will be set up for the first time to allow representatives of different entities working in the Maltese disability sector to meet on a regular basis and cooperate better in technical matters. Their work will be encouraged by an inter-ministerial committee which will ensure that technical decisions are worked on, within the set deadlines, by the different ministries and parliamentary secretariats according to their portfolios.
Another important link in the defined chain of actions will be the establishment of ‘ENGAGE’, the forum of Civil Society Participation in Malta for the Disability sector, within the Directorate for Health Affairs. -Disability, with the aim of giving a constant voice to people with disabilities and civil society. . It will bring together people with disabilities, their families as well as academics, representatives of NGOs and the Commission on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the National Disability Regulator.
Are they on the right track? We would like to think so but it is good to know that the government’s strategy has already received the attention – and praise – of United Nations officials, including the Director for Inclusive Social Development and the Special Rapporteur for -Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Everything goes to show theFreedom to Live/ The Living Freedom strategy is not a steep exercise to fill the gaps but a real commitment to make it an instrument that Maltese society can use effectively by achieving the highest levels of social inclusion and equality.
The mountain of work before us and all those involved, for whom I thank them very much for their contribution, is a source of encouragement as well as a challenge to be happy too.
Malta has seen an electoral promise fulfilled, a robust and innovative strategy woven as part of a collective national effort to pave the way for the nine years of implementation before us and the emergence of a fair and secure future for all the Maltese and Gozitan people. disability.
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