The European Parliament ,

-   having regard to Article 13 of the EC Treaty,

-   having regard to Articles 21 and 26 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which set out the rights of people with disabilities,

-   having regard to Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms,

-   having regard to the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly resolutions of 1 November 2001 on the rights of disabled people and older people in ACP countries(1) and of 21 March 2002 on health issues, young people, the elderly and people living with disabilities(2) ,

-   having regard to its resolution of 3 September 2003 on the Commission Communication "Towards a United Nations legally binding instrument to promote and protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities" (COM(2003)0016)(3) ,

-   having regard to the UN's Millennium Development Goals (General Assembly Resolution 60/1 on the 2005 World Summit Outcome of 16 September 2005),

-   having regard to the WHO Resolution WHA 58.23 of 25 May 2005 on disability, including prevention, management and rehabilitation,

-   having regard to the UN's Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (General Assembly Resolution 48/96 of 20 December 1993),

-   having regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,

-   having regard to the UN's World Programme of Action concerning Disabled Persons (General Assembly Resolution 37/52 of 3 December 1982),

-   having regard to the Asian and Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons (1993-2002), the African Decade of Disabled Persons (2000-2009), the New Asian Pacific Decade of Disabled Persons (2003-2012), and the European Year of People with Disabilities (2003),

-   having regard to the Commission's Guidance Note on Disability and Development for EU Delegations and Services of March 2003 (Commission Guidance Note),

-   having regard to Rule 108(5) of its Rules of Procedure,

A.   whereas people with disabilities in developing countries, in particular disabled women and children, often comprise the poorest, most disadvantaged, and most socially excluded sectors of the population, and are often excluded from development assistance; whereas the World Bank estimates that 20% of the world's poorest people are disabled,

B.   whereas the UN estimates that people with disabilities make up between 7% and 10% of any country's population, and the UN's Population Information Network estimates that, out of a of population of 800 million, almost 50 million people in Africa are disabled,

C.   whereas realising the UN's Millennium Development Goals will be impossible without explicitly and proactively including disabled people of all ages,

D.   whereas the Commission's Guidance Note stresses the need to ensure access for and inclusion of disabled people in respect of all policies and activities supported by EU delegations,

E.   whereas the Commission is involved in the negotiations on the drafting of a UN Convention on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disability (Draft UN Convention), and an early adoption of this convention would be welcome,

F.   whereas the EU's commitment to combating discrimination related to age, race, ethnicity, disability, religion, gender and sexual orientation must be a guiding principle in a rights-based approach to development,

G.   whereas malnutrition, accident, trauma, conflict, disease (whether infectious, non-infectious or congenital), and ageing all cause disability and impairment, up to half of which is preventable and directly linked to poverty,

H.   whereas commitments in respect of 'Education for All' include facilitating the equal access to education by disabled people and their families,

I.   whereas the accessibility to disabled people of buildings, in particular schools, workplaces and public buildings, is important, but planners often miss opportunities to adapt the design of the built environment to meet the needs of disabled people, especially during reconstruction after emergency relief efforts,

J.   whereas representative groups of disabled persons can and should assist and be consulted in policy development and represent the interests of disabled people on consultative bodies; whereas disabled people and their organisations have not been given sufficient opportunity to participate in the preparation of the Commission's Country Strategy Papers (CSPs),

1.  Stresses that disability issues should be reflected in the Commission's development policies and in its specific programmes developed to tackle issues of prevention, care, enablement and stigma;

2.  Believes that disability issues must be mainstreamed at all levels from policy development to implementation and evaluation, including follow-up actions to the EU's policy development statement, and the EU's action plan for Africa;

3.  Calls on the Commission to develop a detailed, technical implementation action plan to implement its Guidance Note, including guidelines on inclusive sector policies and an inclusive Project Cycle Management handbook; a training module for services and delegations; and annual reporting to Parliament and the Council;

4.  Calls on the Commission to ensure that there are appropriate resources allocated for disability-specific actions in order:

5.  Calls on the Commission to include disability and people with disabilities in future EU geographical and thematic programmes under the future development cooperation instrument;

6.  Calls on the Council and the Commission to support the inclusion in the above-mentioned draft UN Convention of a separate article on international cooperation, as a necessary foundation for collaborative actions among developing countries and between developing countries and the EU;

7.  Believes that 2007, the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All, should provide an opportunity for the EU to articulate its values in its external policies and actions, and calls on the Commission to bring forward a specific initiative on non-discrimination and the rights of people with disabilities in development cooperation;

8.  Calls on the Commission to participate actively in WHO-supported campaigns aimed at tackling preventable impairments such as the WHO campaign Vision 2020, aimed at eliminating preventable blindness by 2020, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the Global Strategy for Further Reducing the Leprosy Burden and Sustaining Leprosy Control Activities (2006-2010), and the Global Programme to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis;

9.  Calls on the Commission to include a disability component in its health policies and programmes, in particular in the areas of child health, sexual and reproductive health, mental health, ageing, HIV/AIDS, and chronic conditions;

10.  Calls on the Commission in its development policies and on national governments to promote disabled people's access to assistive technology and equal access to all health services and programmes;

11.  Calls on the Commission to focus on the prevention of disabilities, given that an estimated 100 million people globally have impairments which are caused by malnutrition and poor sanitation and which are therefore preventable, and an estimated 70% of childhood blindness in Asia and Africa could be prevented;

12.  Calls on the Commission in its development policies and on national governments to help public authorities detect disabilities at as early a stage as possible and to integrate community-based rehabilitation programmes into the primary healthcare sector;

13.  Insists that education for children and young people with disabilities be an integral part of the goal of achieving universal primary education, including early intervention services and support and training for the families of disabled children; stresses UNESCO's broad concept of education, which aims at full inclusion in society;

14.  Calls on the Commission and the EU delegations to support vocational training, job placements and business development services through community-based projects that are inclusive of disabled people, and to encourage developing countries to ratify the International Labour Organization's Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) Convention, 1983;

15.  Supports fully, given the effects especially on child victims, the global battle to eradicate anti-personnel landmines and other related controversial weapon systems such as cluster submunitions; calls on the Council and Commission to undertake urgent and decisive measures against countries that still manufacture, sell or use landmines; calls on the Council and the Commission to prioritise landmine clearance in developing countries;

16.  Calls on the Commission to ensure that new building projects funded by the EU systematically incorporate International Organization for Standardization standards on accessible design, in order to make buildings accessible to all;

17.  Calls on the Commission's delegations to make deliberate efforts to facilitate the process of establishing or strengthening disabled people's organisations and to ensure that disabled people's organisations are involved in the consultation and formulation of future CSPs;

18.  Calls on the Commission to make sure that disabled people are no longer excluded from EU development cooperation programmes and to actively seek their inclusion in all EU poverty eradication programmes;

19.  Requests the Commission and national governments to obtain data on the proportion and status (including age and gender) of disabled people who are in poverty, in education and in employment or self-employed and on the impact of projects and policies on disabled people in the fields of education, health, employment and poverty reduction;

20.  Calls on researchers, including medical and socio-economic researchers, to redouble and harmonise their efforts to generate good data and research, as these are the key to moving disability up the economic, social welfare and development agenda;

21.  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the ACP-EU Council of Ministers, the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, the UN, UNESCO and the African Union.

(1) OJ C 78, 2.4.2002, p. 64. (2) OJ C 231, 27.9.2002, p. 55. (3) OJ C 76 E, 25.3.2004, p.231.