Telecom Policy 2006 – 2010: Reasonable communication means for Persons with disAbilities in Maldives?

Posted by on May 17, 2011 in disAbility Rights, General, Guidelines |

What has been done to establish a reasonable communication means for Persons with disAbilities in Maldives?

I was going through the Telecom Policy 2006 – 2010 and its objective to Establish reasonable communication means for People with disAbilities under Infrastructure Development caught my attention. It says;

Objective

2.7: Establish reasonable communication means for people with special needs (PWD’s)

Telecomunication being considered as a basic right of the people, it is necessary that all citizens including people with special needs have access to at least basic telecominication services. In this respect, it is important to assess the telecomunication needs of these groups of individuals and make necessary technological arrangements to provide them with appropriate facilities. Therefore the universal service has to be extended to include the needs of this special group. Through a Universal Service Fund (USF) or other financing mechanism the specific technologies should be made available to the people in need.

Action

2.7.1 Study the telecominication needs of the people with special needs.
2.7.2 Provide awareness on the available technologies to the people.
2.7.3 Monitor the use of such technologies by PWDs and success of the program.

My point in highlighting this is, our Internet Service Providers and Mobile Operators should rather than use up their Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR) on expensive football tournament sponsorships, should spend on important “social” objectives like the one in their existing policies. I hope they take this seriously.

Download Telecom Policy 2006-2010 http://cam.gov.mv/beta/docs/policy/Telecom_policy_2006_2010_Eng.pdf

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