The Centre for Rehabilitation and Advancement of Disables (Cradle), in collaboration with WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia, and UN Information Centre for India and Bhutan, organised a consultation meeting on Assistive Products and Technology for persons with disabilities and elders at the WHO SEARO (South East Asian Regional Office)Headquarters in New Delhi on 10th August 2016.
Its objective was to bring together all the stakeholders – users, care givers, service providers, civil societies, technical experts, academia, manufacturers, development support groups, policy makers and agencies of United Nations on a common platform.
The underlying objectives of this meeting were multi fold and included identification of constraints in production and supply to the end users along with their solutions; various modalities to strengthen multi-sectoral collaboration and resource mobilisation for improving access to assistive devices to everyone, everywhere; Assist policy makers to develop national assistive technology policies and programmes as an integral component of universal health coverage while also focussing on creating mass awareness for use, standardisation of production, policy formulation for universal supply, personal training, costing etc.