The Ghana Somubi Dwumadie in collaboration with the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisations (GFDO), have urged the Government and other stakeholders to Make Built Environment Accessible to all.

A statement issued by the Ghana Somubi Dwumadie, copied to the Ghana News Agency, urged the Government and its institutions, and all other infrastructural developers, to prioritise disability programming within their core business, allocate appropriate resources to such programmes, and establish disability friendly work environments and services, that are accessible for all people with disability.

"We call on government to ensure that our built environment is accessible to all," it stated.

It said the Ghana Accessibility Standards for the Built Environment (adopted in 2016), a document which sets up requirements for accessibility intended to ensure buildings and public places were more accessible to people with disability including; persons with mental health conditions and older people.

It said Ghana Somubi Dwumadie and GFDO, had hosted a high-level discussion on the Ghana Accessibility Standard, to discuss, raise awareness and draw action plans for the implementation of the Standard.

Ghana Somubi Dwumadie (Ghana Participation Programme) is a four-year disability programme in Ghana, with a specific focus on mental health.

This programme is funded with UK aid from the UK government.

Ghana Somubi Dwumadie is undertaking a range of activities alongside GFDO to encourage the implementation of Ghana Accessibility Standard.

The statement said the implementation of the Accessibility Standard was important for everyone; saying "in our day-to-day life we all require services and programmes that are accessible to us. Many legislations and policies have accessibility as one of its core principles".

It said examples of such include the Disability Act 715, the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability (UNCRPD), and the commitments made by the Government of Ghana International Disability Summit held in London in 2018.

It noted that the Disability Act 715 which was enacted in 2006 gave a moratorium of 10 years for public buildings to be made accessible for persons with disability which ended in 2016; declaring that yet by 2021, public buildings still remained largely inaccessible.

The statement said the Ghana Accessibility Standard provided for an accessible environment by providing a tool for measurement or auditing for physical accessibility to the environment.

Others are encouraging developers and designers to incorporate access principles from initial stages of the design, planning and audits process and increasing awareness on disability and the need for barrier-free design in the built environment.

With regards to call to action, the statement said in order to achieve the aims of the Ghana Accessibility Standard and enable persons with disability to have independent access to services and environments, Ghana Somubi Dwumadie, together with GFDO, called on the Government and its agencies to ensure that programmes and services of health facilities were non-discriminatory and accessible.

It impressed upon the Minister for Health to ensure every government budget for the health sector captured accessibility features, especially the government's new health facilities and urged stakeholders to ensure that the procurement of all tools and equipment consider disability to allocate budgets for maintenance of accessibility features.

It said examples of maintenance included; replacement of tactile guiding blocks on sidewalks, high contrast painting, regular tests of emergency alarms and early warning systems, and updating information into accessible formats.

The rest include; carrying out an accessibility audit of public infrastructure to ensure that the national accessibility standard is followed.