4th Pacific Regional Conference on Disabilities

The Pacific Disability Forum (PDF) will be hosting the 4th Pacific Regional Conference on Disability (PRCD) at the Tanoa International Hotel in Nadi, Fiji on the 16th to the 20th of February 2015. The biennial conference is a platform to dialogue and, discuss issues pertaining to the advancement of disability inclusive development in the region. 

The 4th biennial conference will focus on the theme ‘Partnership and Action towards a Disability Inclusive Pacific’ that seeks to forge genuine partnership with development partners and donors to address and advance development in the disability sector. Disability issues to date in all its form is yet to be fully grounded and mainstreamed into national governments policy and translated into action at the national, and down to the community level.

PDF in partnership with development partners and donors, Disabled People Organisation’s (DPO’s), CSO’s and disability stakeholders will contemplate on the overview of partnership and action towards disability inclusiveness in the Pacific, addressing partnership towards effective disability services in the Pacific and highlighting good practices on partnership and action for a disability inclusive Pacific. 

PDF will engage with Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), University of the South Pacific (USP), UN Agencies, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), CBM Australia, CSO’s, government agencies and DPO’s around the Pacific to develop ways forward and strengthen partnership and action towards a disability inclusive Pacific.

The event will also feature PDF’s project partners highlighting the progress of developmental projects undertaken with PDF around the Pacific in working towards a disability inclusive society. 

While this will be the 4th Regional Conference on Disability in the Pacific it will be the first for Fiji. 

Preceding the main conference are the Women and Youth with disabilities conferences, which will convene to discuss experiences and possible ways forward to strengthen effective partnership and action with youth and women with disabilities in the Pacific. A combined outcome statement from the youth and women conference will be tabled at the main conference ensuring that women and youth with disabilities are included in the discussion of ways forward for disabilities in the Pacific.

For more information, please contact Simione Bula, PDF Information Officer on (+679) 721 8756 or email infor@pacificdisability.org