A short history of the PDF
As early as 2002, at the Oceania Disability Advisory Support Committee (ODASC) Training Seminar in Nadi, Fiji, leaders of persons with disabilities and participants from the island nations from the Pacific, began to quietly articulate their desire for an interim committee to spearhead an effort to unite persons with disabilities in the Pacific under a South Pacific federation of persons with disabilities. It was at this meeting that the Pacific Disability Forum (PDF) was born. In 2003, at the Regional Leadership Training Seminar for women with disabilities held in Suva, Fiji, where a majority of participants came from the island nations of the Pacific, this sentiment was again expressed by a number of seminar participants. In the following months the interim PDF Executive Committee attempted to form such a sub-regional federation with the emergence of an opportunity for funding. However, priority shifts in funding allocations within the office of donors in Pacific continue to put a halt to this initiative so it continued as a loose organization. The Disabled People’s International (DPI) Oceania Sub region Office which was established in Suva, Fiji in 2000 to support national disabled person’s organizations (DPO’s) in Pacific Island countries played a pivotal role in organizing these two training seminars as well as servicing the PDF listserv.
By 2004, at the inaugural PDF meeting in Fiji, the members began to once again earnestly discuss the possibility of making PDF a formal organization and establishing a regional office with a regional officer to coordinate the development of such a federation in the Pacific. This proposal was formally included in the draft of its Constitution and a shell plan to be presented to the AGM at its meeting at the end of 2004. The PDF Council faced by unexpected funding constraints, mandated priority shifts which, once again, placed the Development of a new regional office at a much lower priority than original proposed.
In 2005, further consultations were done at a meeting jointly organized by Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, UNESCAP and ILO Pacific Offices, PDF and DPI Oceania. It was at this time that New Zealand Aid and Development Agency (NZAID) commissioned two consultants to review what existed in the area of disability in the Pacific region. As a result, the review presented strong recommendations that would give the NZAID Pacific Regional Health Programme a clear, strategic direction for assistance in the area of disability development in the Pacific region for the next 5 years. It was at this stage that some confirmation of support funding from NZAID was forthcoming and the dream of establishing a regional organization became more interesting. PDF was seen at this point to be well placed as a partner to NZAID in this noble task. Subsequently, NZAID provided an initial funding for one year, from July 2006 - June 2007 to help PDF establish its secretariat in Suva, Fiji and recruited neccessary staff. NZAID has committed further funding to PDF for its core cost and certain projects from July 2007 - June 2011.
This notwithstanding, the years old call and aspirations of persons with disabilities of the Pacific Island nations for a regional organisation which can speak with one voice and articulate their concerns and demands to the rest of the region and the world remains, simmering away like magma lying within the womb of the many volcanoes dotting the region.
The vast distance between the island nations of the Pacific makes the frequent participation of member representative from those countries in regional gatherings of PDF extremely expensive. Thus, the needs, problems and perspectives of persons with disabilities in this part of the world are rarely, if at all, adequately addressed in regional gatherings. Yet, these persons with disabilities are the most in need of assistance and attention, given their ages old isolation from mainstream efforts at rehabilitation and the ongoing struggle for equalisation of opportunities for persons with disabilities. In addition, the young governments and struggling, tiny economies of the region often contribute to the lack of adequate service for persons with disabilities.
The establishment of a regional office with requisite resources to co-ordinate and promote development efforts in the region has increasingly become a vital step towards securing representation and ensuring participation of Pacific persons with disabilities in the regional forums of the United Nations regional inter-governmental bodies, the governments of the region, and regional non-state actors or NGOs. Such an office can orchestrate the organisation, and support the development of a federation of persons with disabilities in the region. Such a federation, in turn, can serve as a framework for the dissemination and appropriate application of information, resources and projects to persons with disabilities of these island nations. Finally, persons with disabilities in the Pacific, speaking with one voice through a federation as a regional block, cannot be lightly ignored in both regional and international forums.
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