Ghana Federation Of Disability Organisations Inaugurates Technical Monitoring Committee On The Sustainable Development Goals

The Ghana Federation of disability (GFD) has begun a campaign in 2016 to promote inclusion of disability issues and participation of persons with disabilities in Ghana in the implementation processes of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This has resulted in getting persons with disabilities adequately represented on most of the Civil Society Platforms advocating implementation of the various goals.

In September 2015, countries adopted a set of goals under the United Nations supervision to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all as part of a new sustainable development agenda called the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each of these goals consists of targets which should be achieved by each participating country within the next 15 years.

Each of these countries has to be committed and work tirelessly towards achieving the objectives divulged in these goals. To GFD, the unique component of the SDGs and its indicators is the inclusion of disability issues; the world has recognized the relevance of the need for inclusion and effective participant of persons with disabilities in the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs.

The Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD) in its advocacy efforts for the activation of the world’s commitment to achieving the SDGs, especially as they relate to disability issues, began the campaign in 2016 to promote the inclusion of disability issues and participation of persons with disabilities in the implementation processes of the SDGs in Ghana.

The disability movement has thus made inputs into Ghana’s Medium Term National Development Plan (2017-2021) which is being prepared by the National Development Planning Commission, and has sensitized over three hundred persons with disabilities across the country on the SDGs.

On 16^th August 2017, the GFD inaugurated a nine-member national technical monitoring committee to, on behalf of the disability movement, monitor the inclusion and participation of person with disabilities in Ghana’s implementation of the SDGs. The committee’s terms of reference include the responsibility to give regular feedback to Organisations of Persons with Disabilities.

According the Executive Director of GFD, Ms Rita Kyeremaa Kusi, who led the exercise, announced that members of the Committee were selected from the GFD’s member organisations as well as other minority groups of persons with disabilities such as the deaf-blind and persons with Cerebral Palsy.

She further expressed the Federations appreciation to Disability Rights Fund and Disability Rights Advocacy Fund (DRF/DRAF) for their support to championing the course of calling for inclusiveness in the SDGs implementation in Ghana.

According to her, It is worth noting that DRF/DRAF have being supporting the disability organisations in Ghana since 2008 particularly in the areas of influencing Ghana’s legislative and policy reforms, promoting awareness on disability issues and participation of persons with disabilities in the Ghanaian society.

The Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFD) in an umbrella body of organizations of persons with disabilities. GFD currently has eight (8) national members made up of the Ghana Blind Union, the Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled, Inclusion Ghana (a group of people with intellectual disabilities), Ghana National Association of the Deaf, Ghana Association of Persons with Albinism, Mental Health Society of Ghana, Share Care Ghana (a group of people with auto-immune and neurological conditions) and Burn Survivors Association. The Federation also works with other unorganized minority groups such as persons with Deaf-Blindness, the little people and persons with leprosy.