The United Nations Convention on the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) has been the first of all major international agreements on disability rights. With 145 signatories and 87 ratifications, a vast majority of the world has both agreed in principle to operationalize rights for persons with disabilities, and made a commitment to provide assistive technologies for their citizens as needed. While the convention is clearly a welcome move away from a medical model of disability to a more rights-based view, the extent to which assistive technologies will be made available to needs remains to be seen.
At several key points in the document, such as in Articles 4, 9, 20, 21, 26, 28, there is explicit mention of accessibility or assistive technologies (AT). These articles span from commitments to providing affordable AT to ensuring reasonable accommodation in the workplace for persons with disabilities. The convention’s promise is made significant by the existence of an optional protocol, which allows a signatory state’s citizen to bring a complaint to an international committee to investigate violations of the convention by a state party. Quite simply, accepting the optional protocol (as 54 states have done – including several UN Classified Least Developed Countries such as Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Guinea, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Yemen) means that a citizen can sue its own country for not standing up to its promise on signing the convention.
While activists and scholars broadly agree that the specificity of the convention is a good thing, it also raises questions about the ability of signatory nations to realistically provide assistive technology to their populations. An important reason is the price of existing assistive technologies. Setting aside the cost of accessibility, especially architectural barriers compliance, even the general assistive technologies available in the market can be prohibitively expensive. Wheelchairs can cost between US$100 to $25,000 and the range of cost is not an issue of greater convenience, but often the threshold cost of what is necessary – such as paraplegic wheelchairs at the expensive end.
Recently a number of projects have started donating used hearing aids to the developing world, but the real cost of over the counter cost devices cost upwards of US$100. Computing-related AT have increased the scope of social and economic participation, but these remain very expensive – market-prevalent screen readers for blind computer users cost in the range of US$1000, and most screen magnification systems are at least US$300 , Braille displays cost upwards of US$3500.
Overall, AT remains prohibitively expensive for a majority of people who need them. Certain types of AT go through phases of increased international interest – prosthetics, especially with an international concern on landmines and high profile spokespersons has both had a significant decrease in the cost and quality of artificial limbs and also led to research and development in the developing world.
In examining the question of whether some of the poorest countries in the world are able to live up to the commitments of the UNCRPD, a critical issue will be whether new research will bring down the cost of AT. At this point, almost all of the AT research in academic and private research remains restricted to the industrial world. The CRPD has already been strategic in recommending nation states invest in research on affordable AT, but the true gap of affordability will require very concerted efforts.
