In a ceremony organized in Ramallah today, the CEC announced the launching of project’’ Enabling of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs)-2015-2016. The Project is funded by the Government of Norway and aims at enabling PWDs to actively participate in the political life in general and elections in particular.
CEC Chairman, Dr. Hanna Nasir, indicated in his opening speech that the CEC has been investigating ways to integrate the needs of Persons with Disabilities into its work plans since the local elections of 2012. Dr. Nasir stressed the importance of integrating all sectors of the Palestinian society and the voting public into the electoral process and thanked the Government of Norway for supporting the initiative.
In his speech, the Norwegian Representative Mr. Hans Jacob Frydenlund stated that ‘The electoral rights of disabled citizens can be recognized and championed, even in the most difficult of electoral environments. Practices from around the world show that it is possible to break down barriers and include persons with disabilities in all stages of the electoral cycle. Mr Frydelund also added that Norway is pleased to partner with the Central Elections Commissions in its work in general and specifically as related to the enhancing and protecting the rights of the people with disabilities.’
On his part, the Head of the General Union of Persons with Disabilities, Mr. Rafiq Abu Saifain, stressed the importance of the project and CEC’s role in enabling the political participation of PWDs and the project importance for supporting PWDs as a productive human force in Palestine.
The project activities will include capacity building for CEC staff to be able to better respond to the needs of the Disabled in any upcoming elections, the alignment of CEC procedures and operational plans to the needs of the Disabled, the production of awareness material suited for all types of Disability ( mobile, hearing and vision), building the capacities of election cadres from the PWDs to assist the CEC in any upcoming electoral event, conduct of awareness workshops for the Disabled and the launching of advocacy campaigns to promote the rights of the Disabled with all election stakeholders and conducting a needs assessment to identify the infrastructure needs to rehabilitate district offices to facilitate the movement of PWDs.
It should be indicated that the percentage of PWDs in Palestine has reached 7% of the total population in 20111 according to statistics of the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics. In the initial stages of the project, the CEC has cooperated with several organizations and Ministries to collect data for more than 71 thousand PWDs. Statistics showed that 50,196 of which are registered voters (30,811 in the WB and 19,385 in GS).
