ESCAP and the Government of India jointly organized a three-day national stakeholder consultation on Incheon Strategy indicators and disability statistics in New Delhi from 15 to 17 March 2017. The consultation involved a series of meetings with senior policymakers, statisticians and experts from line ministries and agencies such as Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities as the Indian Government Focal Point on disability matters), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Home Affairs (National Disaster Response Force), Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ministry of Rural Development, Ministry of Urban Development (Central Public Works Department), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, National Commission for Women, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Election Commission of India and National Institution for Transforming India (also called NITI Aayog), as well as with UN Country Team in New Delhi and Disabled People’s Organizations.
The meetings provided an opportunity to review the national statistical system in India from a disability perspective and assess its capacity to produce reliable and comparable data on persons with disabilities to better monitor national progress in implementing the Incheon Strategy to “Make the Right Real” for Persons with Disabilities in Asian and the Pacific, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development. Based on the findings of the consultation, ESCAP will help the Government develop a national action plan on enhancing disability data collection.