Annex V - Glossary Advocacy Individual and social Empowerment action. Activity towards persons with disabilities and their organizations in order to inform, orient and support their rights Civil Society This term has various definitions. This manual used the tem to refer in general to non governmental organisations and institution, representing persons with disabilities. Committee on Rights of People with Disabilities It is the body established by the Convention whose task is to monitor and evaluate the Convention at international level. It will take into consideration reports coming from ratifying States regarding the implementations of the Convention, having jurisdiction to consider accusation of Convention violations. Community Based Rehabilitation – CBR Community-based rehabilitation (CBR), currently in practice in more than 90 countries around the world, is a comprehensive strategy for involving people with disabilities in the development of their communities. CBR seeks to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to rehabilitation and other services and opportunities - health, education and income - as do all other members of society. CBR is a human right strategy for local and inclusive development. Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities International legally binding agreement with the purpose to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity. The UN General Assembly adopted the final text of the Convention in 13 December 2006, and it opens for signature on March 30, 2007. Disability Disability is a social relation between personal characteristics and the major or minor capacity of the society to take them into account. Disability is not a personal condition, but depend from environmental and social factors and from personal factors. Disability is a life condition for any person (childhood, old age, in different situations) and belong to all humankind. Disability is a concept in evolution, related to cultural and material conditions of each country Discrimination based on disability Means any distinction, exclusion or restriction on the basis of disability which has the purpose or effect of impairing or nullifying the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal basis with others, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil or any other field. It includes all forms of discrimination, including denial of reasonable accommodation. Empowerment The capacity to influence the forces which affect one’s life for one’s own and others’. For persons with disabilities empowerment activities, in individual and social field, are essential to increase personal awareness, self esteem and to overcome processes of social impoverishment. Entry into force When a treaty has received the requisite number of ratification by countries, the treaty will enter into force for those countries. This means it becomes legally binding upon those countries. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities will come into force one month after 20 ratifications have been deposited. General Assembly It is the main deliberative body of United Nations, most adapted to elaboration of general norms and standards for member State conduct. Each State member of United Nations is represented to General Assembly works and each State member of United Nations has a decision vote in the General Assembly resolutions. Social Inclusion Action supporting equal opportunities without any discrimination. Inclusion is therefore a process enabling included persons to have same opportunities and power to organize society as any other person. Inclusion is a right based on full participation of persons with disabilities in all fields of life, on equal base by the others, without discrimination, respecting dignity and enhancing human diversity through appropriate interventions, removing barriers and prejudices and supporting mainstreaming in order to live in local communities. Human Rights Rights owned by any person as human person. All human persons are entitled to enjoy all rights just because they belong to humankind ICF (International Classification of functioning disability and health) Cultural and scientific frame of reference at international level on disabled person’s condition. Approved by WHO in 2001. Implementation Legal and political activity of ratifying States in order to implement the legal obligations foreseen by the Convention International Bill of Human Rights The combination of these three documents: the Universal declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International covenant on civil and political rights, and the International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. Independent Life It is a Movement and a philosophy enhancing the control on every day life and freedom of choices that the persons with disabilities have to have in life as any other persons. For this reason they ask solutions and services enabling persons with any kind of limitation to live autonomous, self determined, independent and interindependent life. Mainstreaming Mainstreaming is the main flow of a river. The idea is to change disability policies from special subordinate policies, (as a river tributary) to ordinary policies, for all. Mainstreaming policies intervene to safeguard rights and promote equal opportunities for people with disabilities inside ordinary policies and legislation, utilizing funds allocated to all citizens. Millennium development Goals Union Nations global initiative to promote poverty eradication all over the world within 2015. Monitoring Systematic and periodic activities to control the level of application and implementation done by ratifying States regarding the obligations legally undertaken inside the Convention. Multidiscrimination When characteristics related to gender, race, culture, religion, political opinions, age, disability conditions summarize and combine, they produce multiple discriminations making more vulnerable persons with those characteristics. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), a department of the United Nations Secretariat, is mandated to promote and protect the enjoyment and full realization, by all people, of all human rights established in the Charter of the United Nations and in international human rights laws and treaties. Optional Protocol A separate agreement that covers only a certain aspect of the Convention. For example, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has an Optional Protocol that gives the monitoring body the power to hear individual complaints of violations of avid, political, social economic and cultural rights as articulated in the Convention. Optional Protocols must be separately signed and ratified by each State Party. Optional protocol entry in force when 10 countries will ratify it. Participation Building of an inclusive society implies that excluded persons be the protagonists of inclusive process, as experts versus the way society has to treat them. This means that persons with disabilities have to be present with equal opportunities as other members of the society in the decision making of all policies, actions and programs related to them. The participation of persons with disability and organisations representing them become a necessary methodology/action, based on the slogan/right “ nothing about us without us” Peer counseling Activity through which, trained and socially included disabled persons acting as peer counselors, can support a process of awareness, personal growth, and capacity building for other people with disabilities. Established in USA, peer counseling spread all aver the world adapting to different cultures and situations. Many organisations of disabled persons developed expertise in this field, producing books and manuals. People with disabilities International term to define persons with impairment who, due to attitudinal /environmental barriers, live limitations to their full and effective participation to society on an equal base with others. Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper - PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper are in many ways the replacement for Structural Adjustment Programs, and are documents required by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank before a country can be considered for debt relief. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) are prepared by the member countries through a participatory process involving domestic stakeholders as well as external development partners, including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Ratification Formal procedure by which a country becomes bound to a treaty. Process through which a State decide to introduce a Convention in its legal system. The ratification process procedures are: signature, Convention consistency versus national legal system, final approval of the law introduced into national legal system. The ratification tool is generally examined by Convention secretary and deposited care off United Nation General Secretary. Reasonable adjustment Necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms. RUDs This acronym means “ Reservation, Understanding, and Declaration”. RUDs can be used to avoid subscription of parts of a Convention or to describe the interpretation of special languages. RUDs are presented by a country along with the ratification instrument. SWOT analysis SWOT is an abbreviation for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. SWOT analysis is an important tool for auditing the overall strategic position of a business and its environment. Treaty Monitoring Institutions Experts Committee charged to supervise and monitor a Convention implementation. Usually a Convention indicates the criteria for choosing members, when and where to meet and the monitoring power to adopt. Treaties Formal agreement between states that defines and modifies their mutual duties and obligations; used synonymously with Convention. Twin track approach Definition utilized in International co-operation field indicating two action tracks in which operate: increasing the resources allocated by international co-operation addressed to persons with disabilities and including disability in every co-operation project. United Nations Intergovernmental States organisation set up in 1945. The main premises are based in New York and Geneva. The UN Charter (International Convention funding the UN) states that UN objectives are: to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples. Universal Design Means the design of products, environments, programmes and services to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. “Universal design” shall not exclude assistive devices for particular groups of persons with disabilities where this is needed.