Author: Mahtab Ahmad
AIT Library Call Number: AIT Diss. no.RD-11-06
Year: 2011
Academic Program: Regional and Rural Development Planning (RRDP)
Type: Thesis (Ph.D.) – Asian Institute of Technology, 2011
Examination Committee: Mokbul Morshed Ahmad (Chairperson); Jayant Kumar Routray, Philippe Doneys, William Francis Boyce(Examination Committee Members)
Abstract: Over the past few decades, several international m1tlat1ves such as the recent United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) have been promoted to provide guidelines for ensuring the rights of individuals with disabilities and their inclusion into the mainstream of society. After ratifying the guidelines, the Government of Pakistan like many other developing countries also formulated accordingly a national policy for the disabled people. In Pakistan, the district governments being duty bearers at grassroots level are mainly responsible for the delivery of public services and protecting the rights of various segments of society especially in rural areas including the disabled, considering that majority of persons with physical disabilities in the country live in rural areas. However, in spite of several policy provisions, the accessibility particularly to various rights-based public services and opportunities by the disabled persons, is still a contentious issue, raising doubts on the effectiveness of the response of such services especially in promoting the disability rights at the grassroots level. Therefore, this study aims to assess the status of how disability rights have been advanced at local levels in Pakistan focusing mainly on the accessibility to public transport and healthcare by the disabled people as well as to the provisions in terms of economic support, and to highlight the barriers that obstruct them from accessing such rights-based services. In order to form a holistic picture, this study assessed the awareness of elected local representatives on the day-to-day challenges of local disabled people and disability rights, and subsequently measured the level of accessibility by the disabled to public transport, health services, and economic support provisions, using a comprehensive set of indicators. The data used for this study were collected from both primary and secondary sources. The primary information were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews of
Scholarship Donor(s): Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan – AIT Fellowship
Note: A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in ‘] Regional and Rural Development Planning, School of Environment, Resources and Development
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