OPPOSITION Senator Dr Floyd Morris has called for the establishment of a global technology fund to make more assistive technologies available to persons with disabilities in developing countries who have disproportionately less access to these tools than their counterparts in developed countries.

Morris said research is showing that up to 85 per cent of persons with disabilities in developed countries have access to one form of modern assistive technology, whereas in developing countries it is between three to 10 per cent.

“There is a significant gap between the developing countries and developed countries, and that is something that developing countries must pay attention to because the latest data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the population of persons with disabilities, just last Friday, is showing that 16 per cent of the world’s population have some form of disability,” he said during a presentation in the Senate on Friday.

Morris, who is visually impaired, said he made the call for the global technology fund during his address at the biennial disabilities studies conference hosted by the King Salman Centre for Disability Research, to which he was invited by the Government of Saudi Arabia last week.

He noted that the just over one billion people with disabilities living in developing countries were “struggling for inclusion and struggling where poverty is concerned because of the lack of available, modern, assistive technologies to facilitate that inclusion in society”.

Morris said it is a fact that for persons with disabilities to be meaningfully included in society, greater innovation and modern assistive technologies have to play a pivotal role.

He further argued that Disability Awareness Week, which was observed from December 3 to 9, should not just be confined to the first week of December but should be an ongoing engagement in seeking to debunk some of the myths associated with persons with disabilities over centuries.

“I want to implore all members of society to understand that disability is not something that we are exempted from — we can have a snap moment of time and just get a slip, and we end up with a disability. But, we must always maintain in the back of our mind [nevertheless] that having a disability does not equate to inability because with modern technologies we are able to live as near normal as possible,” he said.

Turning to the Disabilities Act, which was brought into effect in February of this year, Dr Morris commended Minister of Labour and Social Security Karl Samuda for facilitating this: “But I also want to urge him to light some fire under the tail of those who are charged with the responsibility to implement the legislation to run with it.

“It is a tool that is designed to empower persons with disabilities, and the persons on the ground are saying they are yet to start feeling the effect. Whilst I appreciate that the changes are not going to be immediate but we need to start seeing and feeling some action as a consequence,” Dr Morris said.