Transforming Disability into Ability Conference


For more information, please contact Mercedes Gonzalez-Quijano

Aims of the conference

The OECD and the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research organised on 6 and 7 March 2003 a conference to discuss disability policies for the working-age population. The conference addressed key problems in disability policy, and discussed OECD recommendations on how to tackle them as outlined in the forthcoming publication "Transforming Disability into Ability". The main policy recommendations from the publication formed the basis for the thematic sessions. The conference was organised around five themes:

1) What do we mean by "being disabled"?
2) What rights and responsibilities for society and for persons with disabilities?
3) Who needs activation, how, and when?
4) How should disability benefits be structured?
5) What can employers do?

During the conference, the invited experts discussed proposals to arrive at more effective disability policies and existing institutions and measures were compared with regard to best practices. The "policy conclusions", which have been formulated by thee OECD, were in particular be commented and discussed on their possibilities for implementation.

The OECD policy conclusion and the agenda of the Conference as well as the summaries of the presentations can be downloaded from this website. A book publication is presently under preparation and will be published in the middle of 2003.

Documents

Key issues and policy conclusions
Agenda
Summaries of Contributions

Summaries of Presentations

Special Conference Papers

Measuring Disability and Measuring the Impact of Living with a Disability, Adele D. Furrie
Towards mutual responsibility: The Dutch Experience, Philip R. de Jong

Publications

Introduction to European Disability Pension Policies (by Bernd Marin)
European Disability Pension Policies
Facts and Figures on Disability Welfare

Barriers and Accommodations. Applying the Human Rights Model of Disability to HALS (by M. Rioux, E. Zubrow, A. Furrie, W. Miller and M. Bunch)

ILO Code of Practice: Managing Disability in the Workplace