The ASEAN Enabling Masterplan 2025 is a game changer for persons with disabilities in ASEAN. It is the first rights-based initiative to mainstream their rights in the ASEAN Community 2025.
All the ASEAN heads of government adopted the Enabling Masterplan during the ASEAN Summit in Singapore in November 2018. This initiative kicked off the inclusion of disability matters in all ASEAN processes and mechanisms. Each year, progress on this mainstreaming initiative is tabled for information and discussion at the highest levels of the ASEAN mechanism.
The ASEAN Disability Forum (ADF) was established in 2011 as a regional network of Organisations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) advocating for disability rights. Each of the 10 ASEAN countries has an ADF focal point, which allows the views and aspirations of persons with disabilities at the grassroots level in each country to be better heard and understood.
ADF has been an ASEAN-accredited civil service organisation on disability since 2017. With this recognition, ADF was plugged into the drafting and finalisation of the Enabling Masterplan. This effort took three years over many hours of debate, investigations, and tedious work to synthesise the essence of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Incheon Strategy and the Bali Declaration to ensure that the voices of persons with disabilities are heard and included in ASEAN. It embodied the spirit of “Leaving No One Behind” and “Nothing about Us without Us.”
This journey was filled with many moments of passionate debate on what and how people with disabilities can be better heard and included. There has been a shift in thinking from viewing disability as a social service and social welfare matter to establishing the fundamental human rights of people with disabilities.
The Enabling Masterplan, translated into the eight main languages of ASEAN, was ceremoniously launched on 3 December 2018, during the International Day of Persons with Disabilities celebrations in Bangkok, Thailand.
ADF partnered with AGENDA on these initiatives:
- Conduct roadshows in seven ASEAN countries to create more public awareness and public education of the Enabling Masterplan.
- Produce a publicity kit, including a social media video highlighting the Enabling Masterplan’s message and a thumb drive containing the EMP in all 8 ASEAN languages and related resources.
- Mobilise OPDs in the region to continually advocate to their respective governments to keep the Enabling Masterplan alive in their scope of work and offer their disability perspective.
- Attend review meetings and dialogue sessions held by ASEAN sectoral bodies to continue the conversation on mainstreaming the rights of persons with disabilities in ASEAN.
- During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown and restrictions, our activities moved virtually to conduct training to build the capability of OPDs and ASEAN sectoral bodies in implementing the 76 action points of the Enabling Masterplan. These included training on disability-aggregated data capture to understand the profile of disability in ASEAN better and formulate intervention measures aimed at mainstreaming disability rights.
- Provide the resources to formulate a monitoring and evaluation instrument for the Enabling Masterplan’s mid-term review in all 10 ASEAN countries.
- Provide the resources to appoint independent national consultants and a regional consultant to conduct the mid-term review.
Mainstreaming the rights of persons with disabilities in ASEAN is now being scrutinised. The ASEAN Community 2025 vision is being renewed to a 2040 version. Mainstreaming disability rights is always a work in progress. It is a journey and not a destination. There will always be new emerging needs and challenges faced by persons with disabilities, who are also rapidly ageing, to be part of an inclusive community. It goes beyond the hardware of providing accessibility in the built environment and transport infrastructure and introducing legislation to enforce an employment quota for persons with disabilities. No amount of legislation can level the playing field or regulate the software of how society views and treats persons with disabilities.
Although this journey may be paved with many good intentions, the real test of a developed and civilised community is how the less privileged and disadvantaged are treated and included. Together, we can overcome this.
