For the Anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Ratification by the Republic of Kazakhstan

On the first anniversary of the ratification the Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan once again welcomes the government initiative to implement the underlying principles and norms of the Convention into national legislation and to create equal opportunities for full community participation of persons with disabilities.

The Convention is one of the fundamental international instruments with principles and norms that are aimed at uprooting discrimination against people with special needs and enforcement of their rights in matters of access to employment, information, health care, education and justice, and participation in decision-making.

In recent years, the Republic of Kazakhstan has taken a number of positive steps to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities, for example, establishment of community councils under executive bodies with the involvement of people with special needs, improvement of infrastructure, and access to education, health care and social facilities. However, there is much yet to do for our country to implement all of the provisions of the Convention, and hopefully current difficult economic situation will not affect implementation of the planned reforms.

On the anniversary of Convention ratification we once again would like to acknowledge the efforts of all stakeholders in the promotion and protection of rights of persons with special needs. Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan, in turn, will continue to contribute to the promotion of various initiatives aimed at full community involvement of people with special needs.