Mr Charles Nyante, Programmes Coordinator of Voice Ghana, a disability rights and advocacy think tank, has appealed to District Assemblies to effectively collaborate with civil society to address disability issues in the country.

He said the inability of some district assemblies to effectively work with civil society organisations to address problems of people living with disabilities, was compounding the problems and rights of disabled persons.

Mr Nyante made the appeal in Tamale on Tuesday at a round-table discussion aimed at petitioning the Local Government Ministry to direct all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, to mainstream the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPDs) into their future Medium-Term Development Planning (MTDP).

Voice Ghana organized the programme in partnership with the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition and Local Governance Network (LOGNET), with funding from the Disability Rights Fund of the United States.

Mr Nyante stated that the key components of Article 28 of the CRDP, which seeks adequate and appreciable standards of living and social protection for persons with disabilities, needed to be mainstreamed into the planning of Assemblies..

He said disability was a national issue that required an urgent attention as well as a holistic and comprehensive approach, and that Voice Ghana had developed alliances, and drawn support and proven competences from some key state institutions in the country.

He said Voice Ghana envisaged that by the end of the project, the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development would support the campaign and engage all MMDAs in the country to mainstream key components of Article 28 of the CRPD into their development plans and budgets.

Mr Abdul-Karim Ibrahim Afa-zie, Northern Regional Representative of LOGNET, expressed concern about the safety of people with physical disabilities, especially the visually impaired, in terms of emergency, and called for a holistic approach towards addressing their problems.