Challenges of Inclusion

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) obliges States Parties to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of person with disabilities. Governments at all Levels are called upon to promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities in all spheres of life. The local Level plays a particular role with respect to provisions made by the CRPD, which states that disability arises from the interaction between a person and her/his physical and social environment. Persons with disabilities are particularly affected by social, environmental and cultural barriers. lt is the social and physical environment of local communities, where these barriers take concrete shape, and where local planning approaches have to manage the dismantling of barriers and the implementation of inclusive structures.

The Republic of Ghana ratified the CRPD in 2012 and started to adopt legislative and policy measures for its implementation at all government Levels. But how are these legislative and policy measures being taken up in Ghanaian districts? Which approaches for a local implementation of the CRPD prove to be effective in Ghana? These and further questions were addressed by researchers of the Department of Social Work at the University of Ghana and the Centre for Planning and Evaluation of Social Services (ZPE) at University of Siegen, Germany in a Pilot Project at Suhum Municipal, in the Eastern Region of Ghana, implemented between July 2017 and June 2018. This report presents the findings of a qualitative baseline study on support systems and social service arrangements for persons with disabilities in Suhum, which was conducted in late 2017 as part the pilot project.