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AU‑IDPP SIDE EVENT
JUNE 16, 2016
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[Captioner Standing By] 
>> DERRICK COGBURN:  We're just about ready to get started. 
>> Ladies and gentlemen, could you please sit down and take your seats.  If you could please close the doors also, it would be very helpful.  Maya, could you please close the doors because the sound of the corridor affects us.  First of all, thank you very much for being here.  Thank you for accompanying us on a very important panel on the issues of challenges and opportunities for accessible global governance, enhancing participation for persons with disabilities in the UN processes.  I would like to thank you, first of all, because it's 615 and I know the efforts you're doing.  It's been a long day.  We started with our first parallel event at 8:00 in the morning so we're all very much looking forward to leaving the UN as fast as we can.
[Laughter.]
>> So we will have this very intensive panel joined by a group of experts who we will give the floor to and you will have a flyer with their IDs.  We'll save the presentations of their CVs.  They will present themselves as we begin.  This is a very important subject matter which IDPP has been working on with the sponsorship from the Nippon Foundation and others because we recognize that there is a need to have a better, more effective presence of the disability community in the decisions of global governance.  I will begin by explaining where I had the experience in the organization of the convention on disability that when we met for the first times in New York in the year 2002, in reality, the delegations of the countries who were present did not know about disability, were not familiar with disability, did not have anyone with a disability, including the delegations, and did not have the capabilities of deciding issues of disability.  So the first meetings, in reality, of the committee, were consciously decided to have experts from different agencies of the United Nations and the intervention of civil society as the major definers of what the convention would be about.  That convention is due to the presence and the participation, active participation, of the disability community in the formulation.  It was not an easy task because countries, the nation states, do not like civil society to intervene in intergovernmental negotiations on conventions.  And therefore, in one of the meetings, I, as chairman, had to submit a presidential decision, a presidential decision is a mechanism by which the president formulates the need to continue the negotiation, the need to have the presence of the disability community as participants in the negotiation.  And this was resisted by a member of regents, not only of the developed countries but also Africa and the others.  Finally after 8 months of negotiation, we got the approval in a very contentious decision that the civil rights, the human rights for disabled communities would be able to participate in the discussion.  And this is why we have a convention.  And it was following the basis of nothing about us without us that we learned what the complexity of disability was, and this is why it's drafted this way.  The title of this parallel event is geared to making the disability community more effective in the processes in the United Nations that require not only knowledge of what happens in the meeting halls and what type of meetings, every one of the organizations and agencies has a different culture, a different mechanism, a different agenda.  And many cases the secretariats have different agendas.  Therefore, the purpose of what we have tonight is to continue what we did last year in the eighth meeting and that is to formulate the need for preparing persons who have the capabilities of lobbying not only the governments, the agencies, the secretariats, but being effective in the outcome.  And as we move forward for negotiation like Habitat III or any other negotiation that will come up in the future, we need to have persons with disabilities sufficiently capable, knowledgeable, prepared to do that which is fundamentally a negotiating strategy in order to maintain what we have in accordance with the CRPD.  It would sound logical that if 195 countries have signed and ratified the convention, the majority of the world would follow the obligations that they had committed to in the convention.  That sometimes is not the case because, as human beings, many of the delegates in the UN, both here and in Geneva or Vienna or Paris or wherever they are, are not knowledgeable about what has been agreed upon and what has been agreed language.  So therefore, a learning curve is always very precise.  To give you an example of this, in the United Nations here, in New York and in Geneva, normally a permanent representative, that is the chief of mission to a mission here has a lifespan of three years.  That's 36 months.  Therefore, every three years, you have a rotation of almost all of the PRs in New York.  Very few of them stay for more.  Of course, there are those who are condemned to life for 20 years or something like this.  [Laughing]
>> But normally, a diplomatic system will change the PR every 36 to 48 months at the most, and therefore, you have a whole new team coming in who does not know what happened before.  And this is why I'm exemplifying in this the need for a constant learning and interrelationship by the persons with disabilities, the DPOs and the NGOs who are here in New York and are in their countries to do this.  With Derrick, we have talked extensively about this issue.  He has done a magnificent study he did last year, and I know this is a long introduction, but it's pinpointing the need that we have to continue a process by which we have effective negotiators in the disability community and that's the objective we are trying to do today.  Thank you very much and we will begin by giving Dr. Derrick Cogburn ‑‑ I'm sorry, I missed Lynn A I didn't know, who is my colleague from the mission ‑‑
>> [Away from mic]
>> No, no, so familiar with being with you these days that I forgot.  Please, you have the floor.  Thank you very much. 
>> [Away from mic] as you know the ceremony of CRPD was a little bit late and I have to ramp‑up a bit [Away from mic] in any case the meeting in the room was in the best possible country in the world [Away from mic]
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> She's a colleague.
>> No.  [Away from mic] diplomatic life is not having been able to work with you for a very, very brief period and I had the honor of [Away from mic] delegation [Away from mic] two years ago. 
>>  Yes.
>> In any case, I had some notes and I have a paper, but I think it will be better for the sake of all of us to give my impression about this matter.  In matter of accessibility in the sense of [Away from mic] how to interact state of NGOs and DPOs and also the matter of physical [Away from mic] physical disability to the buildings and the meetings.  And in the sense, I got a feeling that [Away from mic] I perceive in the late years, especially the accommodation of phase I study, people, states, NGOs, everyone is more aware of things we do, but it is still a long way.  I would say more during this week [Away from mic] people with disabilities in access the room to get the documents and the tools for participating [Away from mic].  Is that different, how do you access the buildings?  How do you access the quarters?  The attitude of people allowing you to interact in different ways and also Vladimir was mentioning to me on the first day that also the procedures of the United Nations.  I say that all these matters have to be that way in order to [Away from mic] and also with rationality in order to always take into account that United Nations is an [Away from mic] organization has to deal with the civil society that I was saying the [Away from mic] having more and more importance, not just in this form but more [Away from mic].  Another time related the procedures and I think maybe we need better conversation.  I was on my way to here, for me was a [Away from mic] because I didn't realize that we had ‑‑ there's not a special [Away from mic] person with disabilities in the agenda [Away from mic].  There are because [Away from mic] people.  But people with disabilities is not considered [Away from mic] means to cover if you like to fix these [Away from mic].  And also just to ambassador gal [Away from mic] realize every one of us has been and will be a person with disability.  With the recent earthquake I thought in a very shocking way because my mom is a person [Away from mic] attempting a complicated surgery at this time and at the moment of the second earthquake, it was very early in the morning, she was [Away from mic].  By coincidence, I called my house and she was crying.  And she said something happened, I cannot [Away from mic].  Maybe this made me understand [Away from mic] this conference and if that is not [Away from mic] on the way forward is about people.  Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> Thank you for making the effort of coming because it's late.  [Laughing]
>> On that note, I will give the floor to Dr. Derrick Cogburn, good friend Associate Professor of IDPP, the School of International Service American University.  I've had the pleasure of knowing Derrick quite some years now and we've worked together with his team ... 
>> DERRICK COGBURN:  I am delighted to be here and I want to echo ambassador guy takings being here so late being here on Thursday evening felt I also want to thank our colleague from the government of Ecuador for your wonderful remarks.  I think you've framed these issues exceptionally well and I look forward to being able to have a discussion about some of our findings and also some of our possible solutions and some of the recommendations coming out of the study.  So we want to do a few things today.  I want to talk a little bit about the background to the problems, situation that we face that both Ambassador Gallegos and our colleague from Ecuador laid the groundwork for and I will say a little bit about the study that we conducted and was able to have a high level of participation, a number of people in our community participated in this first phase of the study, and I'll tell you a little bit about the study and the findings that we went into some detail last year.  I'll then summarize our findings.  And then I'll talk about operationalizing the findings and the recommendations.  I want to talk about our suggestions for moving forward and some of the pilots and the experiments that we've engaged in to allow us to be able to move forward.  We also hope that we have an active discussion.  We've tried to structure our presentation today so that we have some ideas that we put on the table, but then we have enough time for a good, active, robust discussion about these issues.  So I'm looking forward to that.  To get started, and some of you who were here last year will recognize some of these thoughts.  We look at the United Nations, which we know is the center of the state system.  It is a state‑centric body and it is an intergovernmental arrangement to allow countries to be able to work together, solve problems, engage with each other through the United Nations.  But we also recognize that from the founding of the United Nations and the United Nations charter, which opens with we the people's of the United Nations, it has been about multi‑stakeholder participation from the beginning, but the question is:  How do you involve these people's from the nations of the United Nations?  How do you involve individuals, citizens, participants in a state system?  That has been an overarching challenge.  There have been a number of efforts to work through this.  So if we go back to agenda 21 and the Earth summit in 1992, we have the formation of the major groups' framework.  We have various initiatives such as the world summit on the information society and the General Assembly resolution that authorized the creation of WSIS which talked about multi‑stakeholder situations and allowing civil societies and the business community to register alongside governments for this multi‑stakeholder world summit.  It really advanced that process quite a lot.  We've had other initiatives like the car dose oh report, the Rio‑plus 20 reaffirming the major group system and the HLPF and SDG resolution which our colleagues talks about the inclusion of the major groups.  It does go one step further and talks about the major groups in other stakeholders and it does reference persons with disabilities as another stakeholder.  And I want to get back to that in just a moment.  We've had that process and that progress in some ways of thinking through how do we involve and engage with citizens.  So the major groups' framework is used by a number of major UN processes including the CSD, UNEP and a number of major processes use this major groups frameworks.  We know it includes women, children and youth, farmers, indigenous people's, NGOs, trade union, local authorities, science and technology and business and industry.  So that's the major groups framework.  And those major groups have been operating for a number of years, developing structures and organizational mechanisms to participate in this process.  I'm sorry, I didn't see XL there.  What's obviously missing from that major groups framework is the fact that we have a billion people in the world with disabilities who are not included in that major groups framework.  The Third World conference on the disaster risk production in Sendai modified this process and in some ways is seen as a model for how to engage with persons with disabilities as a major group, almost as a de facto major group.  And thanks to the Nippon Foundation and our colleagues such as Hiroshi who's going to present in a moment, the persons with disabilities are able to engage in the process and get the same perks and benefits that other major groups were able to have.  Again, the HLPF has expanded this process and our colleague from IDA will talk about coordinating this process.  This is the background to which this study was borne.  We did have a question from less than on mor rain oh, the envoy to the secretary general.  But then what happens next week?  Where does all of the participation of persons with disabilities, all of the accessibility and the accommodations and the sign language interpretation and captioning, where does that go next week?  And what are the factors that make it difficult for persons with disabilities to participate in these processes.  So we conducted this study supported by the Nippon Foundation and drawing from some of the other work out there on trying to look at how do you reform the major groups framework, looking at some of the work that the ITU has done and thinking about accessible technology for meetings.  And again, looking at Sendai as a model in this space.  So the conceptual orientation of the study really looks at global governance.  And what do we mean by global governance and a lot of international relationist theorist talk about the [Away from mic].  We don't have a global government.  And yet you have issues that are transnational in scope that requires cooperation, collaboration, decision‑making, negotiation, between states in the state system.  So how do you have governance of issues that are transnational in scope when you don't have a global government?  So there are a number of ways a number of theorists have looked at this.  One I find particularly appealing is called international regime theory.  It's really about what Crazner called a convergence of expectations of norms, principles, values in decision‑making procedures.  If the participants in this process can come together and shape the principles and the values and the norms and then agree on what's the appropriate decision‑making mechanism, you can govern these issues and you can have a strong regime when you have enforcement of those decisions made collectively.  So international regime theory is a very powerful conceptual framework for thinking about how do we have global governance but it's also powerful thinking about how do we engage with and influence global governance?  Because Crazner was what we call a ... and states negotiating these norms, principles and values and many of us who use regime theory recognize we have to have a multi‑stakeholder global governance process.  We can't just have states because so much of the expertise sits in civil society.  The states are actually changing their participants in this process every three years is what you were saying.  Some of the the main participants in missions and so forth will change felt but it's the civil society that is going to be persistent and where knowledge is generated and stored within our processes.  And we also know it's not just about participating in the process, not just being here, not just having a seat at the table so you can say we had civil society participate.  But how can you effectively participate in shaping those norms, principles and values, shaping the decision‑making procedures and processes and that's what we mean by effective participation.  And part of that comes from what Kaufmann called back in 1988 conference diplomacy.  How do you know what to do once you get here?  How do you know what to do [Away from mic] it's a very exciting way for us to think about where are all the locations of strategic interests and influence in this process?  So we can think about what happens before the conferences.  This is something that many people don't know.  Ambassador Giles mentioned our [Away from mic] in October.  Sometimes people will mistakenly think I'll get myself to Kito.  I'll get registered and go to the conference and influence the outcome of the conference.  No, no, no, those negotiations have been happening for months.  And we only have one more real shot coming up in July in Suda Bia to influence the outcome of a conference that's not going to take place until October.  The pre‑conference perceptions, learning the backgrounds and issues and how to craft language that can be palatable to multiple actors is critical.  What do you do during the conference?  Let's say you have a delegation.  What do you do?  You gained access to the hallowed halls.  What do you do?  Do you sit there or lobby and negotiate and network and trying to figure out where there are commonalities.  Where do you negotiate the rules and how do you understand the rules, what can you do and what can't you do?  What happens after the conference?  Let's say you were successful in getting language in the conference document.  How do you evaluate and follow up?  These are critical elements and what happens with your presence in global nodal cities like New York and Geneva and Paris and Washington, DC where the meetings and follow‑up is happening every week?  And when we leave from New York, from COSP, there will be meetings next week that we really should be participating in.  This is the challenges that we face with global governance and this study tried to look at now.  I'll go through this relatively quickly.  We asked four big questions to try to get at the issues, the social, economic and technological factors that make it difficult for persons with disabilities to participate in the process.  Phase I is structured interviews.  We interviewed a range of subject matter experts from around the world and are reporting on these findings.  Phase II is a web‑based survey that's been delayed but should be going out next week or the week afterwards.  And then we'll have a series of focus groups to do what we're trying to do today which is talking about what we learned and getting your feedback on this process.  Just a very quick summary of recommendations.  We had a great panel.  We know that a lot of people who participate in these processes are highly educated.  Most people have masters degrees and/or, PhDs or advanced degrees in law and otherwise.  They've studied law, diplomacy, development, disability studies, communication, public policy and even business to participate in the processes.  Most of the people we interviewed have participated in multiple conferences, multiple UN conferences and other international conferences.  All of them, however, recognize this need for broader participation and for ‑‑ they even recognize that their own experience, most of the participants in UN conferences has been dominated by their participation in COSP or other disability specific conferences.  So even our participants didn't have a lot of experience outside the disability specific global UN processes.  There was a recognition of this continued bias that is seen amongst some participants, some member state delegations, some challenges with certain security guards, many participants are overwhelmed by participating in these kinds of processes, they sometimes feel like they don't have the deep technical knowledge about the issues to be able to engage in discussions, and so these are lots and lots of the kinds of challenges that we find.  But we have about 50 recommendations that are coming out of the study.  We have a few copies of the hard copy of the study, but we have an electronic copy that is on our website at IDPPglobal.org and it goes into each of the areas about physical access and education access and active participation in other areas.  So I want to close by talking about how we move forward.  And again, if you look at the HLPF, for example, which will meet annually every year under ECOSOC and high level every four years, the representatives from the major groups and stakeholders can attend all official meetings, can have access to all official information, can intervene in official meetings, submit and make recommendations, and organize side events and so forth.  So we have to think about how does the coordination process for persons with disabilities work in this critical venue.  And our colleague from IDA will tell us more about that.  Let me end by saying how we want to operationalize these findings and some exciting pilot initiatives that we're involved with.  First off, we know that our colleagues that we want to collaborate with are spread out around the world in different countries and cities around the world.  We argue that there are new skills that are required to be effective in this environment.  And part of this is parochial, I come from doing work on computer supported cooperative work and computer supported collaborative learning so my own backgrounds and tendencies push me towards virtual teams and virtual organizations.  I argue that new skills are required, whether you are in business, government, science or in policy advocacy, knowing how to work on a global virtual team, across time zones, across cultures, across technologies, across disciplines and across institutions.  We talk about this as a collaboratory.  Some of you have heard me use this term before.  A collaboratory blend the words collaborate and laboratory.  When William Wulf coined the term, he talked about a center without walls where researchers can work together as if they're in the same physical place but they can be spread out all over the country and all over the world.  We're talking about physicists and earthquake engineers doing upper atmospheric research and collaborating as if they were in the same physical space.  And part of my argument is if they can do that, surely we can have discussions about policy issues that are detailed and difficult and draw on data as well.  So I want to end by just saying two things.  This was a consensus definition of a collaboratory that we developed in a National Science Foundation project that we had funded in the early part of the century.  So this definition is a collaboratory is an organizational entity that spans distance, supports rich and recurring human interaction oriented to a common research area, fosters contact between researchers who are both known and unknown to each other, and provides access to data sources, artifacts and tools required to accomplish research tasks.  Remember a collaboratory was about a scientific research group, a scientific research center.  So in my work, we expanded this collaboratory concept.  So we expanded the concept, we applied it to cyber learning and we built a network of 20 universities in Southeast Asia focusing on accessible educational practices using cyber learning techniques that came out of collaboratories in cyber learning.  We've had a number of these collaboratory projects and we modified the approach to not just focus on scientists but focus on practitioners as well enabling practitioners to collaborate over distances.  And we have been able to, throughout these various projects, focus on accessible collaborators, so persons with disabilities can participate actively in these processes.  So we have an opportunity, thanks to UN‑DESA and the secretariat for the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and the Department of Social policy and development to pilot an initiative called the disability inclusive development collaboratory.  The disability inclusive development collaboratory is designed to support accessible distributed collaboration around a range of disability inclusive initiatives.  This is a prototype of the website because a collaboratory has three categories of activities.  And technologies to support those activities.  People to people activities so people can talk to each other and work together, develop strategies and position points.  People to resources so the members of the network can draw on data and background papers, videos about the process, and people to facilities so that people who are not physically in the room and not in Geneva or New York can still participate actively.  And not just listen but also participate.  And we are going to demonstrate some of that today and I'm just delighted that Dr. Victor Pineda who is coordinating one of the first network that this disability inclusive development collaboratory is supporting is focused on Habitat III.  And it's called the disability inclusion and accessible urban development network and we'll be able to talk about that a little bit more later.  So thank you very much and I look forward to our discussions. 
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> Thank you, Derrick, for the explanation.  I just wanted to tell you that I'm a practitioner of diplomacy for many years, more years than many people are ‑‑ we used to say is if you are not at the negotiating table, you're probably on the menu.  [Laughing] 
>> So it's very important to be there, okay?  To actively participate.  Because you cannot think within Geneva with a certain level of [Away from mic] that the rest will represent you.  That does not happen.  Now our next speaker is the senior advisor for the national disability aligns, Dr. So lie am Barta.  So.
>> Thank you very much, ambassador and thank you all for inviting me to this event and first of all, lem recognize that I feel very much honored to be part of this panel.  I don't know how I ended up sitting here because I'm definitely not going to be able to match with Derrick's presentation and his eloquence and enthusiasm and everything.  I have a very poor legal presentation that I prepared for you for your understanding.  Thank you, again, for giving me the chance.  I heard a couple of things from distinguished presenter from Ecuador and also from Derrick referencing and ambassador highlighting how important it is that participation is ensured and not just during this week, during the conference of state parties, but beyond this week.  And I would like to say not only beyond this week because there are meetings ongoing parallel to the conference of state parties that are not inclusive for persons with disabilities.  But before I'm going to talk to you about history and where we are and what we are doing in IDA with the [Away from mic] presentation and the high level political forum, lem start with a really, really great success story which happened an hour, 90 minutes ago.  Today was the first day that the high level political forum ministerial declarations elements paper was introduced by the co‑facilitators Australia and Peru in an intergovernmental setting.  However, because the high level political forums and multi‑stakeholder forum, and I will talk about it later, major groups and other stakeholders were invited to make a presentation.  The stakeholder group of persons with disabilities was represented by Colin Allen who is the vice chair of IDA and the president of the world Federation of the deaf.  He is in town because of the conference of the state parties.  Our preparation time for this meeting, the nomination time for this meeting was basically 24 hours long.  Writing the speech took 20 minutes.  That's how much we got to allocate.  But at the end of the meeting, after every group, every member state spoke, there was a very little space for major groups and other stakeholders to offer their opinion about the upcoming meeting and the ministry declaration.  Colin Allen signed, it was a meeting which was not accessible, he brought his own sign language interpreter and he gave a fabulous presentation, all the attention of the member states were towards him.  Ambassadors were coming up afterwards to Colin gratulating his speech and saying what can we do?  And the first thing that should be doing and we hope will happen is to sign interpreter at the high level political forum, which the theme this year is leave no one behind.  If there is no sign interpretation provided, you are going to leave about 70 to 80 million deaf people behind whose language is international sign.  But how did we start out where we are and how do we engage in the processes?  Let me run through it very briefly.  Very long time persons with disabilities were in global level advocacy from various human rights perspective, but this has changed in the year 2012 at the beginning of 2012 when member states were preparing for the Rio conference on sustainable [Away from mic] and defining the future we want.  We have advocated for the inclusion of persons with disabilities and in 2012, the outcome document recognized persons with disabilities as stakeholders.  New to the development agenda and we were new also as persons with disabilities and advocates but it was also new for member states.  What can persons with disabilities contribute to the dialogue and conversation?  So not much happened for a while, but at the end of 2012, the negotiations and the modalities resolution was high level political forum started, we managed again to be included.  The modalities resolution defines who can participate and what are their rights.  And Derrick gave a very good presentation that basically other stakeholders major group can attend all the meetings, make submissions, recommendations, interventions, speeches, organize site events and so forth.  But what does that mean?  So in 2012, by the General Assembly, persons with disability are explicitly mentioned to have all these rights and what happens next?  In 2012, the high level political forum had its first meeting.  We are not present.  Okay.  In 2014, the high level political forum has its second meeting and we want to be engaged this time, we want to be part of the discussions because this year is, again, about to discuss among member states how they would like to see the high level political forum in practice carried out when substantive negotiations are starting and we would like to input that we are here, one billion persons with disabilities and we want to be part of these discussions.  So we go through our usual channels, we carry‑out heavy advocacy and in 2014, we are included.  9:00 in the evening, for 30 seconds, IDA is granted to speak.  30 seconds.  It was good for one thing, for one reason.  We have realized that this is not what we want.  But we want to be there, but not like this.  So we take the resolution, we have rights, but why are we not at the table?  So 2015, January, starts and it's an historic moment.  Because it's late, I'm going to tell you the story.  When my colleague we are at major group stakeholder civil society coordination meeting, everybody is focused on the post 2015 negotiations, who knows what, we are exchanging information, we are thinking about strategies.  The meeting is over.  We are about to go out.  And then a colleague of ours from the NGO major group starts to complain.  You know, after the meetings, you start to complain on the corridors and on the floors."  We have to make a submission and the deadline is first of May and we have to make an official submission to the high level political forum.  This is really what happened.  And I'm looking at him.  You can make a submission?  How come we haven't been informed about this?  And he said no, no, it's just for major groups. 
>> Hmmm.
>> The next day we picked up the phone and we called the UN secretariat.  Is it true that major groups can make an official submission to the high level political forum?  Yes, yes, but this is a tradition from 1992 when major groups were established and it's a usual UN practice and no, there is no chance you can submit anything. 
    So this was how everything started.  And I think I cannot tell ... among other stakeholders to discuss strategy forward.  Then we went to the secretariat and the disability movement was leaving this fight between major groups and other stakeholders and we were leading the way and the discussions to give a meaningful interpretation to the modalities resolution of the high level political forum and we were fighting for our rights.  We had a number of conversations.  We had a number of telephone calls.  Yes, I'm going to finish now.  As a result, four months later in 2015, the UN secretariat of major group coordinating mechanism has changed its official title and it became stakeholder coordination mechanism.
>> Wow.
>> In 2015 persons with disabilities for the first time in UN history submitted an official documentation supported by 109 organizations from all over the world.  Not only IDA, but more than IDA.  We had three official speakers at the high level political forum in 2015.  We were part to create a terms of reference for major group and other stakeholder engagement mechanism at the high level political forum.  We are member of the decision‑making body called the steering group.  As of today, the stakeholder group of persons with disabilities is the co‑facilitator of the major group and other stakeholder steering group.  In 2016, by the first of May, we made a submission to this year's high level political forum supported by 370 organizations.  We will have a validation of over 21 persons with disabilities attending the high level political forum coming together from all over and from all parts of the world.  We are planning to make speeches, interventions, questions, we are going to be there and we have applied to organize and participate in six different side events.  Thank you very much. 
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]!!! 
>> Thank you very much.  I now will give the floor to my friend, Muhammad A lead.  I've had the pleasure of working with him for many, many years.  Please, you have the floor.
>> Thank you.  A pleasure to be here and I'll try to be brief.  I usually fail to do that.  But I'll try to do it, especially since it's a late hour on the last day of the conference and I know everyone would like to go home or go enjoy some wine to celebrate the closure of the conference.  [Laughing]
>> It's a pleasure to be here on this panel with moderated by excellency Gallagos ‑‑ and academia.  If you allow me, please to address the issue of accessible global governance from a little bit of different angle.  Although I agree that global governance is about participation in decision‑making processes done at the international level, but this cannot be really effective if we would forget the grassroots and local organizations.  In order to understand why it is important and how it is possible to involve grassroots organizations and bridge between global efforts and local efforts advocating for rights of persons with disabilities not only through a multi‑sectoral or multilayer but also from a multi‑sectoral and different theme act approaches.  I believe that global governance is nothing but knowledge, power, participation, effectiveness and making a difference.  But in order to do that, we need to have good preparation not only for places or technology, but also changing attitudes of stakeholders, governments, and grassroots organizations towards the need for having a better grasp on global governance.  What I mean by this is that local organizations tend to not understand the significance of engaging with global governance.  Either because they don't have the knowledge or because they have been neglected throughout the process.  And accessibility is not only about technology.  It's about environment.  We need to also the willingness to share information with the grassroots.  Lots of problems could be acting as challenges for sharing information or for enabling grassroots organizations to have better access to knowledge on how to become more effectively involved with UN agencies or other international organizations and so on and so forth.  If we claim to be representatives of persons with disabilities at the international level, we cannot do that without really having a strong grasp on the context of grassroots groups.  In order to do that, we need to establish strong communication mechanisms with the grassroots.  We need to allow grassroots to become more involved in every single stage of decision‑making.  This is something that we all talk about when we repeatedly mention this every time we meet, that persons with disabilities must be involved in the decision‑making process starting from the grassroots level up to the global level.  But what do we do with those who are living in remote areas?  What do you do with those who live in places that we don't have access to internet, they don't have electricity to access knowledge?  What do we do?  How are we communicating with them?  To what extent country offices of the United nation and the World Bank are engaging directly and passionately with the grassroots groups.  I think this is something very urgent and I would like to urge all of us to think how to take this wonderful initiative that Dr. Cogburn has presented now, how to make this more open for the grassroots and accessibility of technology is one part.  But also going to meetings and making sure that buildings where meetings are taking place are accessible.  Documents are available in different formats for persons with disabilities, sign language is available and provided at or during meetings, simplified language for persons with intellectual disabilities is also available.  So first it's how to share knowledge with people in order to enable them to speak and attend conferences like the COSP conference and the high level political forum.  This should continue and should be addressed systematically within the United Nations system, within the state system, even at the governmental level, I think this is something that the UN should address with governments because I think one of the problems and one of the challenges that we tend to get inclined to the attitude that, okay, I'm the government or I'm an international organization, I have the power, this means I can speak on behalf of people.  This is probably true, but it's not enough because I need to ensure the authenticity of the ideas I'm presenting at conferences like the UN and everywhere else.  One example we tried to do as a best practice in Lebanon and I had the honor to lead this initiative with Sylvanna when we started the initiative on how to involve civil society organizations and marginalized groups with the formation of government budgets.  We tried to establish a platform of or a coalition of civil society organizations where we first of all raise awareness on why it is necessary to engage with decision‑making processes at the governmental level and we establish a platform of knowledge sharing because this is an essential strategy to enable civil society and grassroots groups to be involved in the decision‑making process.  We cannot expect or ask grassroots to go to meetings if they know nothing about what's happening.  They are not going to sit as like statues and listening and shaking their heads as they agree.  And at the end of the day we blame them that they're, excuse my language, stupid enough to [Away from mic] we need to give them [Away from mic].  We need to open our minds and hearts and change our attitudes and provide them with everything possible in terms of enhancing their knowledge.  And we are doing this, for example, in the Arab region, we're trying to create a web portal providing information on accessibility in the Arab region.  And I think this is something that could open up for better knowledge sharing mechanisms as a model in a developing country that could be also pursued in other places so they can be more effectively involved with the decision‑making process with the United Nations and try to bridge between grassroots groups and international organizations like the UN and the World Bank.  Thank you very much. 
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> Thank you.  You point out something that is really important and that is that we have a coming from the south [Away from mic] always mentioned the use of technology [Away from mic] to have our organizations participate [Away from mic] south means that there are limited resources going to expensive cities like New York and Geneva and those must be reached in some way to get the voice of organizations and people's out to the international [Away from mic].  The next speaker on my list is Dr. Victor Pineda, founder and director of [Away from mic] I've known [Away from mic] CRPD in 2002.  We have been many places in the world together and he has become a leader of disability community in many cases.  I give him the floor for his very concise but very important [Away from mic].  Please, victor. 
>> Thank you, your excellency, dear friends, nothing is more powerful than knowledge.  There is one thing more powerful though is to act upon knowledge at the right time, at the right place, with the right allies.  So with IDPP and with many other [Away from mic], we are starting to build upon what the ambassador has said, which is to make sure that we're at the table so we don't end up on the menu.  When we talk about global governance, we talk about making these processes accessible, we're really talking about knowledge, action, and coordination mechanisms that allow a very unique perspective but a very powerful impact to have a multiplier effect in the various forms where we participate.  The question becomes how do we do that?  Dr. Cogburn raised several key important points, which is how do we develop the skills and the capacities to work across time zones, across countries, across cultures, across languages, across disciplines?  How do we create a conversation that is intelligible on multiple scales and multiple contexts and with multiple interests?  Where do we get the path, kind of the process, where do we get that roadmap that tells us what to do when and how?  Well, that is something that we are working out as we speak with the Habitat III process.  So my intervention today is on knowledge networks and global governance, stimulating substantive disability inclusive contributions to the Habitat III process.  This is an incredibly important process.  Like a colleague ar stolia at IDA has done tremendous work with advocates all over the world to ensure that we're specifically mentioned in a sustainable goals.  She's specifically found the mechanisms to participate in the high level political forum, to find a way to build relationships with those diplomats that keep turning around and for three years, which is what the ambassador had reminded us, but we cannot forget, as our colleague Muhammad reminded us, that there are hundreds of millions of people living in rural areas, in the Global South, that are doing work on the ground that have skills, at all times and visions and it's not enough to say that we represent them.  We need to create a dialogue that transcends space.  We need to create a dialogue that transcends cultures, that transcends languages.  And that is done when leveraging information and communication technologies.  And we have through ICT with us here, one of the global leaders in really thinking about accessible communication technologies and we have partners from DPI and the Nippon Foundation that are coming together to create both these networks and the grassroots, within governments, between governments, and with the knowledge networks, such as universities and research institutions.  So what I'm trying to say is that the only way to effectively create sustainable change is by leveraging the knowledge, bringing it together, translating it, mobilizing it into action.  And developing ways that research, policy and advocacy can be mobilized in the right place at the right time, simultaneously.  So we live in a time where simultaneity, or multiple things happening at the same time is increasingly important.  What we're doing with the Habitat III process is taking advantage of the Nippon Foundation's leadership with its disability inclusive development platform, we have got every major disability rights groups now on board to support the network for disability inclusion and accessible urban development, we have member states now that are being lobbied to have specific commitments to this global process and to ensure that we are represented, we have some funding coming in to ensure that we are truly cross disability so we can send our delegates to Serbia, to Kenya, to Ecuador, so we have bodies there, but also so we have technology to bring people with disabilities virtually into the discussions and take the content of the discussions and distribute it globally as well.  So what a knowledge network is is the information, the strategy and the actions being mobilized in realtime.  So we need your help to ensure that we communicate the most important ways to mobilize action, that we are connected on Facebook, on social media, by email and discussion groups and we aggregate this knowledge and these knowledge hubs so you can log on to a website and have easy access to the documents you need to be able to take action.  What we need to do is to ensure that this is from a civil society perspective, easy to access, easy to understand, and easy to act upon.  Thank you very much. 
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> Thank you very much for your intervention.  Now we will be talking about making information accessible.  Our guest is Hiroshi, [Away from mic] civil society caucus on persons with disability who will be attending remote. 
>> Hello.  Can you hear me?
>>  Yes.
>> Okay. 
>> Good evening.  I'm joining from Tokyo.  Good morning.  This is migrate pleasure to be involved this very important meeting.  Let me go into my presentation, which is the given title is making information accessible in the Third World conference on disaster reduction.  I would like to talk about ‑‑ next slide, please.  Okay.  Thank you.  There are three milestones in my memory, my direct memory.  First one was the world summit on the information society, which took place 2003 in Geneva and 2005 in Tunis.  The first one is already mentioned by the keynote speaker that the civil society was very active in moving forward for this summit.  And disability caucus was organized during this summit and I was the focal of that disability caucus.  The most important negotiation and challenges we had during those two years or three years was the inclusion of the language of persons with disabilities and always it was rejected until almost the last minute of the first stage of the summit in Geneva.  Finally, we thought about what is the unique aspects of disability perspectives in the context of the bridging the digital divide?  And we reached the agreement among us that design is the most unique aspect of the perspectives of persons with disabilities and there was a proposal to put forward universal design language, which will be supported by all delegations.  And actually, it turned out once all government delegates supported the universal design to be included in the final document, suddenly there was no barrier to include persons with disabilities.  So it was such a successful attempt to put forward universal design first and then which is required for persons with disabilities, old aged people, et cetera.  So then in Tunis it was very easy to include persons with disabilities and universal design in the outcome document.  So that was very important experience of disability community how to gain the support for the disability perspectives.  This slide is taken from Tunis summit.  One is the global forum on disability, which was one of the most successful official event during the summit.  And another is disaster reduction meeting focused on disability.  Next slide, please.  Thank you.  CRPD, which was adopted 2006 and the conference of the state parties, as you know very well, has been very successful practice of inclusion of people with disabilities and UN‑DESA and disability including stakeholders make it accessible wonderfully.  And on the screen, we have the most current screenshot of the webcasting, which has both sign language and English captions.  Next slide, please.  The Third World conference on disaster reduction took place March last year, but the preparatory conference took place in Geneva in July 2014 and the first preparatory conference was the most important negotiation point and we put forward [Away from mic] as representative of the disability stakeholders and he drove the attention of the inclusion of persons with disabilities during the whole Third World conference process.  And it was well taken, but as everyone talked about the major group issues, USIDSR, very strict to follow the major group theory.  So therefore, we disability caucus, had to join the NGO major group and we explored how to make it happen to have a appropriate representation during the whole process.  Major groups are already mentioned, but at the Third World conference, if you visit the official website, there is an entry under the major groups, the entry of other important stakeholder groups, which includes only disability group.  This is the creative solution which came up from the UN ISDR after a very tough negotiation with this provision.  The disability group had almost equal opportunity to other major groups to join the process.  Next slide, please.  The achievement in terms of disability inclusion for the Third World conference is more than 200 registered participants with diverse disabilities, including 2 deaf/blind participants, both are very active, and a group of good su name evacuation practice presenters with severe psychosocial disabilities.  And disability inclusive outcome documents.  Sendai framework for DRR2015 to 2030, which stipulates active roles of persons with disabilities in DRR in relation to other universal design.  And disability group was authorized to join the organizing partners for the Third World conference.  And in addition to that, two deaf sign language interpreters presented international sign during the conference.  Next slide, please.  So there were logistical problems encountered due to requirements for webcast design of a UN conference, only caption was included in the webcast.  Sign language wasn't included, even though sign language interpreters are there.  Next slide, please.  Logistical problems continued.  Not accessible podium design and miscommunication between meeting coordinator and accessibility ‑‑ conference coordinator and accessibility coordinator, overall accessibility check process should be built into UN conference protocol for the future.  As we had site visit to ensure the accessibility, the physical accessibility of the venue was almost perfect, but only the podium.  When we visited, we were shown about 45 centimeters high podium components and we thought it's okay.  But when the actual podium was set up, it was about 135 centimeters high with two stairs.  So then we had to seek temporary emergency solution, which was delivery slope, which was not very good solution, but without this slope, the podium couldn't accommodate speaker with wheelchair.  Next slide, please.  So conclusion is:  Implementation of disability inclusion requires accessibility coordinator who directly reports to the highest decision maker to adjust existing inaccessible barriers including mindset.  Some code of conduct among United Nations is not think about the requirements of persons with disabilities, which is caused by some mindset.  So not only physical barrier, but also some mindset barriers is obvious.  So therefore, it's very important to have a direct reporting status for the ultimate decision makers.  Written guidelines such as disability inclusive meetings, an operational guide, which was published by UNESCAP is extremely useful to promote inclusion with persons with disabilities in meetings at all levels.  UN‑DESA and CRPD committee secretariat are encouraged to share their good practice with their practical manuals regarding meeting accessibility.  Finally, sustainable funding for UN meeting accessibility development is crucial.  Thank you very much for your attention. 
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE]
>> CART WRITER:  I have no audio.  Applauds applauds.
>> CART WRITER:  I have no audio. 
>> Learn from [Away from mic] in terms of progress.  We have to remember why we have to constitute the disability [Away from mic] in the first place.  Always remember from that [Away from mic] in preparation for Sendai, the reason why I have to [Away from mic] the number of other organizations because we have tried to [Away from mic] disability voice, between major organizations and major groups, so we basically went out by ourselves to the NGO platform as for the right to speech [Away from mic] rights are not rented, rights are [Away from mic].  That's something we have for the moment I think the Nippon Foundation trusted us to [Away from mic] work [Away from mic] are achieving a group realized.  Challenge us to remember where we came from.  [Away from mic] exclusion, now we also need to look at who are excluded from our meetings now.  Trying to keep up with [Away from mic] people who have been thinking do I get my spinal surgery, which means I cannot come to New York?  I come from rich country, I can get by [Away from mic] traveling 25 hours by bus to get here.  Who are we excluding from the meetings and how do we ensure that they participate in distance [Away from mic] also want to share a [Away from mic] challenge [Away from mic] how to [Away from mic] major groups trying to [Away from mic] ‑‑
>> Can I invite you to keep your remarks to [Away from mic] others opportunities to ask questions as well.  Thank you.  These are very important points.
>> And my last point is how to ensure accessibility [Away from mic].  Thank you very much. 
>> Thank you. 
>> Thank you very much for the floor.  I'm [Away from mic] and I'm a member of the European parliament.  I come from Belgium.  I would like to thank our distinguished panel for our interest and concrete discussion we've had today and I feel that we've had some time this week in straying from the point but I feel our time has been very well spent.  Reflected on our good friend Colin Allen, president of the world Federation for the deaf and certainly his work for disability aligns has been viable and it's important you reported on what he said.  It's not accessible to the people in this meeting.  If I'm there with my interpreter, there are many deaf people in this room who would be excluded.  So that's an irony that you can't ignore.  If I would, I would ask all of my deaf friends to raise their hands.  That's all of us.  That's about half of the room.  So that would have all been excluded.  If I didn't bring this interpreter whose voice [Away from mic] all of those people in this room would have been excluded.  Let's not do that to ourselves.  As a gentle reminder, we made mention that millions of people use international signs and certainly there are people who use that in the context of meetings and interpreters who use that language in the context of the meetings, but we also have our own national sign language and international sign is by no means a universal language between and among deaf people except more when we meet together.  Such as English can't be a global language imposed as such.  International sign is a global language and we have to respect the sign languages of the various national groups and regional groups.  As we've heard the discussion today, it's wonderful wonderful information that I definitely want to take back to Europe and parliament and put forth by way of discussion for improved access for people with disabilities.  We are by no means at the end of the fight.  We have much further to go.  Thank you all our distinguished panelists and guests.  Thank you. 
[Applause!]
>> Thank you so much.  Let's get a few questions in.
>> Make a request.  [Away from mic] from CN.  IDC and IDA working together on a capacity developed program for DPOs how to effectively engage in the 2030 [Away from mic] lens.  The presentation you've given, Derrick, would be fantastic if we could have that to incorporate into the curriculum.  That's precisely the type of information we needed and your background would be really helpful.  It's a request and a thank you and a pleasure victor for the discussion we had this afternoon.  That was the fastest and most productive meeting I've had where it just goes to show what happens when we can effectively link civil society when it's well plugged in and it knows how to engage with the system.  Again, thank you.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> I had a question over there. 
>> I'm Michael Stein and I'm an attorney here in the United States.  And it's wonderful that you've included people with disabilities at the UN level and a challenge for me is that people with disabilities including most of us who are deaf don't always have access to the educational opportunities growing up, the educational backgrounds to be able to participate fully at the UN level.  And I'm thinking that about how to overcome that challenge and there are many people for whom a higher education is not possible.  There are 40 deaf employers in the United States, I don't know if that number is in other countries as well, but I don't know we have numbers on people with disabilities [Away from mic] in those other countries and I'm thinking about that as a way to overcome the challenges.  Thank you for your attention. 
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> Thank you.  Thank you so much.  I have a question over here in the back.
>> It's a question [Away from mic].  Ambassador Gallegos mentioned the difficulties in the UN and the information system to [Away from mic] dialogue and negotiate persons aware of issues with disabilities.  When I come to the class every year, I see a lot of delegations that do not have anyone [Away from mic] the question I have in mind is is there a way, perhaps, to companies to bring in delegation or national [Away from mic] some countries do bring delegation [Away from mic].  More countries with disabilities working with national delegation [Away from mic] universal language.  Just a question. 
>> I think that it's extremely important to have national delegation [Away from mic].  Because the formulation of the national position before coming to the [Away from mic] is formulated in each country and that formulation is not only done by ministry and Ministry of Welfare, education, and labor, it's a multiagency task force.  And people with disabilities is not consulted and DPOs are not consult and NGOs in the country.  What you have is a limited vision of [Away from mic].  I was thinking something that is very unique and that is that many countries come here and the secretariat delegation writes the speech and the speech is done by someone who does not have the knowledge of [Away from mic].  So that's the learning curve, I think, is also something that you have to make an effort.  This was the [Away from mic] to have a course on disability to teach delegates what we are talking about when we talk about this. 
>> I can take another comment.  I think I saw Hiroshi make a comment where he said no, it's not happening either.  If you look at the national report to the committee on the CRPD, those national presentations frequently do include persons with disabilities that are presenting as part of those national delegations.  So I don't know if there are mechanisms that incentivized countries at that point to bring persons with disabilities, but we might want to look at what is it is requiring or encouraging countries to bring persons with disabilities.  I remember watching very clearly the Ecuadorian presentation of the national report and I remember the committee asking if you have any people with disabilities, almost as ifa ha, you don't, and they were like yes, we do and they showed that.  I think whatever the mechanism that encourages that to happen, we should look at that.
>> Ecuador has had the enormous [Away from mic] vice president of Ecuador therefore the policy of the government has been to include persons with disabilities and it's an honor to have a participant active in discussions here in New York [Away from mic] 
>> Question with disability already [Away from mic] also bylaw they are required to be engaged by [Away from mic] many number [Away from mic]. 
>> Thank you, everyone.  And just two very brief remarks.  For me, for persons with disabilities, to try to [Away from mic] agenda which has been fighting for inclusion for persons with disabilities means nothing if it's not interactive for every single person with disabilities on the ground.  Persons most left behind, those with psychosocial disabilities, intellectual disabilities and [Away from mic] I want you to collect the global level because the global level is here to serve you to voice your challenges, your barriers here and bring international attention in front of you.  Please connect with us.  My second remark is going to be very, very brief and I would like to address the deaf community.  What I advocate on disability rights for many years and that every single opportunity I'm taking the liberty to address states or colleagues from civil society [Away from mic] I always point out the role and the importance of international sign language.  We have many times representing IDA by persons with disabilities.  That's the key.  Whenever we had persons with disabilities making statement on behalf of IDA, I rarely had the occasion that a deaf person was addressed.  This is going to change because the new chair is the president of the [Away from mic] deaf and I have very high hopes and expectations [Away from mic] huge impact on the UN processes.  Thank you. 
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> Thank you.  Muhammad? 
>> I would just like to briefly comment on the idea of including persons with disabilities in government locations and meetings.  This is wonderful and excellent point, however, yes, there are countries that are respectfully bringing within their delegations persons with disabilities who have strong ‑‑ who are of strong capacity to give inputs and these inputs are really quality inputs and highly valued, especially when it comes to addressing the right approach on disability inclusion and disability rights and compliance about different treaties and conventions and so on and so forth.  However, when it comes to the local level, in terms of selecting delegates with disabilities as part of the government delegation, this is a very important point.  And I think, as we said, Victor and I before, knowledge is power.  And we need to make sure that those who are reflecting the knowledge on disability according to the local context of countries participating in meetings is taking into account.  Because unfortunately, and I want to be frank here, and allow me to do so, but some countries try to bring whoever is ‑‑ whoever they are pleased with, whoever is politically correct accord to their standards.  We need to make sure that there is a mechanism.  What is the mechanism, based on what criteria, and how to make sure that we are choosing the right people to be part of the delegations.  Thank you. 
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> Thank you.  I also echo Ambassador Gallegos and keeping that in mind when people are selected into delegations.  One brief question and we'll go into final remarks.
>> Thank you very much.  I think it's a fantastic discussion and one [Away from mic] history and despite the challenges, [Away from mic] being achieved.  My name is [Away from mic].  [Away from mic] for those of who [Away from mic] information that can be then transferred across borders in audio and other formats.  Of course, there's a long way to go in terms of the implementation of that.  I would like to encourage and hear from the panel if you have recommendations or suggestions for individuals as to what you think some of the successes can be in the implementation of the [Away from mic] but more importantly what else needs to be done in that regard.  Thank you. 
>> I think the mercus treaty is one of the most important and highlighted interests.  It's a [Away from mic] intellectual property, which was extremely complex because this has to do with copyright.  This is the liberalization, the non‑charging of intellectual rights for books for persons with disabilities.  This is a major trend because big editorial groups in many countries opposed this treaty and it was a very tough negotiation to get that.  Once you have the treaty approved in the sense that you have [Away from mic] now the complicated part is the implementation.  So I think when it comes, of course you will have to deal with the copy writing agencies of each government and many of the groups you have.  It is a complex issue, but it will change the accessibility for knowledge for persons with disabilities, a huge range of [Away from mic] and I think it is the right direction to go and the educational system will benefit enormously.  As I said when we began, the negotiation, you need to know the process, you need to be able to rationally have an argumentation toward the countries and the organizations and be able to lobby the decision makers and parliament and executives to make it work.  This has to be done in 193 countries. 
>> Thank you.  Very, very final question from one of our online attendees.  Hiroshi, if you can hear me, the floor is yours for the final question.
>> Thank you very much.  Comment rather than question. 
>> Go ahead. 
>> And other international languages in order to go down to the grassroots level, we have to think about language issues.  And from the technology side, I think multilingual, multimodal information exchange through the internet, TV network and other internet‑based network should be the key to promote the full participation of people with disabilities at the grassroots level.  So that direction is very important.  Thank you. 
>> CART WRITER:  I have no audio. 
>> Thank the panelists for their very interesting comments.  I would like to leave you with the thought ‑‑ I can leave it on.  I have to tell you that one of the fundamental reasons for a negotiation is to have the argumentation basis for a discussion that has the fundamentals of a discourse.  And you have to argue with compatibilities and data.  I'll give you what I think is some of the principle issues that we have to lobby and lobby hard.  One, the CRPD has 165 signees and ratifiers.  Of the 193.  That means we're short 30 or something number.  Many of them are fail states.  Many of them are countries in conflict.  Many we will not get on board easily.  It's a process.  It's a process.  But the majority of that 165 countries, the majority of the United Nations is bound by treaty.  So anyway in which you can make present to the negotiations international negotiations that the majority of countries have already obligations in health, education and so on is the way that delegates will understand very clearly.  Both Dr. Cogburn and I have worked for a marvels program in Asia which was having a Master's degree to have persons with disabilities become experts in the use of the convention as a tool for negotiation internally with their government.  These are disabled persons who are activists by their own sense, to go into the public realm in both parliaments and executive and be able to argue intelligently on how and why this government must comply.  You're either born with a disability, you acquired disability during life by accident, sickness, war, malnutrition, many other factors, but certainly as you age, you will be disabled.  The World Bank and the World Health Organization in their last report stated that there are a billion people with disabilities.  Of those, 800 live in the South, the Global South.  600 million, according to the last statistics, are aging, and of those 350 million belong to China.  And in the recent meeting in April in the World Bank, 650 million people have mental illness, product of stress and the rest who have a crippling effect on the economies.  These are the numbers we are talking about.  But if you add the stakeholders and their families and you add the more, we need a critical mass of numbers that will impact sufficiently to make public policy change and benefit.  And not only change internationally, but nationally.  So I leave you with these thoughts because they are a formulation of an argument, of a memento in Spanish, to have a guideline to the script to argue effectively with those who must make the decisions.  So this is fundamentally what we want.  That they take the decisions we want them to do and we have to move them to do that adequately.  I have to thank you for your presence here late at night and thank you for this.  It's been a fascinating opportunity to be with you all and I wish you the best.  I have to thank all the organizations they tell me so I will begin by the institute of disability and public policy, the embassy mission of Ecuador, the Nippon Foundation, World Enabled, G3ICT, international disability aligns and the disabled people's international.  Thank you very much.
[AUDIENCE APPLAUSE] 
>> DERRICK COGBURN:  I would also like to thank our staff, everybody who's done such a great job of organizing this, particularly Maya Aguilar, and on the UN side I want to thank Talon, who did all of the side events.  Thank you, Talon.  Thank you, everyone, have a great evening and a safe trip wherever you're headed.  And thank you to our captioner.