A NON-GOVERNMENTAL organisation, Inclusion Friends Association (IFA), on Wednesday demanded the inclusion of Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) in drafting and implementation of the National Digital Literacy Framework (NDLF).
The Executive Director of IFA, Grace Jerry, made the call at a Media Roundtable on Digital Literacy for Women and Girls with Disabilities, organised by IFA with support from Rise Up and the Public Health Institute in Abuja.
According to Jerry, IFA is an organisation that promotes the rights of Persons With Disabilities (PWDs), using data to address the inclusion and participation challenges of over 30 million PWDs in Nigeria through advocacy, training, and research.
She said the call to include PWDs in NDLF was imperative to ensure that the specific needs of the disability community were captured among other marginalised groups to promote inclusivity.
She said the media roundtable was aimed at addressing the pressing issue of the urgent need to include women and girls with disabilities in the NDLF 2023 framework.
“As we navigate an increasingly digital world, ensuring equitable access to digital tools and opportunities for all, it is no longer optional, it is essential.
“This media roundtable is a key step in our advocacy efforts to ensure that women and girls with disabilities are not left behind in Nigeria’s digital transformation.
“Our ultimate aim is to secure the adoption of an addendum to the NDLF 2023, which explicitly incorporates digital literacy for women and girls with disabilities, by the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) by Aug. 2025.”
Jerry said to achieve this, IFA was working to build a coalition of stakeholders, including policymakers, civil society, organisations, and the media, to drive awareness and advocacy.
She added that her organisation would use evidence-based insights, stories, and media coverage to emphasise the importance of inclusion.
She also said that with the support of the media, the conversation would reach decision-makers and influences the necessary policy updates.
According to her, this is because the media plays a role in shaping public discourse, driving awareness, and influencing policy change through their platforms, stories, and insights and amplify the voices of marginalised groups.
Also speaking, Mr Festus Okpeh, Lead Researcher of IFA, said while analysing the stakeholders’ involvement in the drafting and implementation of the NDLF, said out of the 113 members, there was nobody representing the disability community.
According to Okpeh, 22 members were drafted from government organisations, 15 from development partners and technology companies, two from technical working group and 74 from implementing partners.
He said there was need to include the disabilities community like the National Commission for Persons With Disabilities and other PWDs organisations for the purposes of inclusion.
A facilitator, Safiya Bichi, while speaking on the topic “Media Role in Advocacy for Digital Inclusion” referred to digital inclusion as equitable access to digital technologies and the internet, ensuring that all individuals participate in the digital world.
Bichi called on the media to play the vital role to advocate for digital inclusion by raising awareness, educating the public and influencing policy, thus the need for the media roundtable.
The Programme Officer, IFA, Tracy Onabis, said the NDLF is a veritable tool to drive digital skill up scaling in Nigeria, so it was necessary to promote the inclusion of the disability community because their exclusion was raising concern.
Onabis said one of the gaps in the NDLF framework was the fact that there was no specific mention of PWDs in the framework.
She said the framework generalised the terms vulnerable, marginalised and underserved.
“It will be a blatant disregard of the disability community if the framework is implemented without the consultation and input of persons with disability,” she said. (NAN)
